


Keith Month 2k18 Collection

by SilenceIsGolden15



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Study, Fluff and Angst, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Keith Month 2018, Sick Keith (Voltron), Story Collection, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-23 13:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 31
Words: 46,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16159694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: A series of small to slightly less small prompts for the Keith Month 2018 event on Tumblr.





	1. Ash to Ashes-- Guardian Spirit of Fire

**Author's Note:**

> This chapter's title inspired by the song Skin To Bone by Linkin Park. Enjoy! My usual monday oneshot will still be uploaded in a few hours as usual.

Climbing off of his hover bike, Captain Jacob Reynolds double checked his map. There are only so many two story houses in the middle of the desert, but in matters like these it’s best to be sure. 

It was correct. So with a bracing breath, he put his shoulders back; his dust covered suit constricted across his shoulders as he made his way up to the rickety, ill fitting front door. 

Three heavy, solemn knocks--  _ thump, thump, thump -- _ and he counts the seconds of silence after. Eighty three seconds pass before the doorknob rattles and the door opened, just enough for a pair of dark eyes to peer out at him. 

“Hi, Keith.” He said, looking down at the ten year old with what he hoped was a smile and not a grimace. “Do you remember me?”

The boy narrowed his eyes, but nodded and opened the door a bit more, revealing a thin, pale face and a recognizable mop of dark hair. He looked so much like his father, and Captain Reynolds felt his heart clench in his chest. 

Keith peered up at him curiously. “Why are you here?” He asked, clenching the doorknob hard. “Is dad going to be working late or something?” 

For a moment the Captain faltered. Shit, he’d barely comprehended the news himself, and now he had to tell a freaking child. 

“Ah, why don’t we go inside and sit down. Is that okay with you?”

He narrowed his eyes, probably remembering being warned against strangers, but after a moment nodded and opened the door wider, turning to proceed deeper into the house. Captain Reynolds followed, trepidation rising in his heart. 

The living room was the expected exercise in organized chaos-- stacks of dirty dishes by the sink, laundry peeking out from the hallway, piles of unopened mail on the coffee table. Being a firefighter wasn’t an easy job, and trying to raise a kid at the same time made the task even more difficult. 

Captain Reynolds invited himself to sit on the lumpy couch, smoothing his hands over his dress pants. After a moment's hesitation and a beckoning gesture from the Captain, Keith padded forward on his bare feet and sat down beside him. 

Here goes nothing. 

“There was an accident today.” 

He heard the moment when Keith sucked in a breath and didn’t let it out again. 

“We got a call at about two o’clock about a two story house going down in a suburb a few miles from here. We managed to get most of the family out, but there was still someone inside-- a kid, not much older than you.”

“Did Dad get him out?”

Captain Reynolds blinked and looked down. Keith hadn’t removed his gaze from the floor, but suddenly his throat was tight.  _ God he’s so much like his dad. _

“Yeah. He did.”

Keith gave a contemplative little nod and said nothing else, forcing the Captain to continue his story. He cleared his throat gruffly. 

“Your father was the last person in the house when it collapsed.”

Keith was very, very still, as though the truth was a T-Rex that couldn’t find him if he didn’t move. 

“Was he hurt?” The question is a whisper. He already knows. 

“He…” The Captain’s voice cracked shamefully, and he had to pause again to clear his throat again. “He was declared dead on the scene.”

Silence fell like a ton of bricks. It persists for an unnervingly long time-- a chain building around his neck link by link, second by second, until he can’t bear it anymore. He’d been expecting a little tsunami of tears to fall, fast and furious and unending, not this stoic stillness and morgue silence. 

“Do you understand what that means, Keith?”

Keith finally moves-- his shoulders bunch around his ears and he tilts his head down until his hair hides his face. 

“I understand. It means he’s not coming back.”

Captain Reynolds doesn’t know what to say to that, so he merely makes a noise of agreement and allows the chains of quiet to return. He’s waiting for the kid to break out of shock and react, but he has no idea how to nudge him closer to that point. So he sits and lets the time tick by. 

It’s hot and stuffy in the house. Sweat is gathering at the back of his neck, down the line of his spine. A fan spins lazily on the ceiling, stirring the homework laying abandoned on the kitchen table. For awhile he counts the revolutions. 

After half an hour of silence he shakes himself from his stupor. It was getting late, the sun was going down, and he still had to get this kid into town. 

“Come on.” He got to his feet awkwardly; he didn’t know how to do this. He didn’t know how to do any of this. But Kogane had died on his watch, under his command, and he owed him this much. “We need to pack you a bag.”

“Why?” Keith’s voice was flat and unfeeling and he still hasn't budged from his position. 

“I’m supposed to take you to Child Services.”

“No.”

It takes Captain Reynolds a long moment to comprehend what had just been said to him, but once he had he felt nothing but bone deep exhaustion. It had been years since anyone had said that word to him, it only figured it would end up coming from a ten year old. 

“You can’t stay here alone.”

Keith finally moved-- lifting burning eyes to glare at him, chin jutted out at a familiar defiant angle. 

“I don't care. I’m not leaving.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I said no!” The fire blazes up from nothing, throwing Keith to his feet and catapulting the volume of his voice. Boiling tears are filling his eyes. “You can’t make me!” It’s a childish phrase followed by something blistering. “You let him die!” 

Jacob wasn’t going to be proud of himself in a few minutes, but at that moment something in him splintered. He felt the shards dig into his lungs-- propelled by hours of biting back his guilt and horror directly into his flesh. 

“It was his own fault!” He roared. Keith went dead pale and scrambled back, stumbling into the couch, but even that wasn’t enough to stop Jacob now. “I told him not to go back in, I  _ ordered  _ him, and he went anyway! You want someone to blame kid? Blame  _ him! _ ”

There’s a pause, a beat of silence where Keith stares at him with wide eyes and Jacob almost apologizes before the kid flares back, tiny fists clenching at his sides. 

“Don’t talk about him like that! My dad’s a hero!”

That makes Jacob chuckle bitterly even as tears threaten to spill. It’s a familiar childhood platitude that was never meant to be spat out like that; steeped in rage and smothered in pain. 

“Newsflash, kid. Heroes aren’t real.”

In the end Captain Reynolds had to drag Keith from the house, kicking and screaming and scratching, and somewhere along the way the boy tore out a piece of himself-- leaving it to bleed out on the desert sand. 


	2. Watch Me Burn-- Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith misses his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title brought to you by Burn by Three Days Grace.

Keith had been in his first foster home for a week, and he already knew that he hated it. He missed his father-- an awful yearning ache that never stopped. He’d cried himself to sleep the last two nights, muffling the sounds into his pillowcase, because the first time he cried aloud  his foster brother had cuffed him roughly on the head and told him to man up. 

When he slept he dreamt of his mother; a faceless, voiceless woman who came to take him home to the desert, where his father would be waiting with his tired smile and arms open wide. Of course that was nothing more than a dream, and that Monday morning started the same as the last seven had. 

It was still dark outside when the bedroom door creaked open, and a few moments later he barely registered a low voice. 

“Brian, remember to wake Keith up.” 

Footsteps, and the door creaked again, and he fell back into slumber, eyes still heavy from the previous nights tears. The next thing he knew he was hitting the floor. 

He vaulted into wakefulness, scrambling to pull himself upright. His eyes landed on the clock and he had to swallow a groan-- he had one minute until breakfast, and that was not nearly enough time to get dressed and make his bed the way his new parents expected him to. 

Brian stood behind the bed, head cocked and a smirk stretching his lips that told Keith he’d done it all on purpose. Keith glared at the older boy, but he only smiled wider and turned to saunter out the door. 

He picked himself up carefully, mind still swimming in darkness. 

~~~~~~~~~~

_ Keith had an alarm clock for the mornings when his father wouldn’t be home, but he far preferred it when he was. The clock would still go off, but he would just turn it off and roll back into his sheets, content in the knowledge that Dad would be along in a few minutes. It never failed: a light shake of his shoulder, and a warm voice close in his ear.  _

_ “Come on bud, time to get up.” _

_ It was like a game. Keith would groan and roll in the other direction, his father would catch him by the shoulder and turn him back, quietly and patiently goading him until Keith finally sat up and rubbed his bleary eyes clear.  _

_ Sometimes, when Keith was still too sleepy to walk straight, his father would pick him up and carry him into the kitchen. He’d lean his head against the man’s broad shoulder and blink at the sunlight filtering in through the blinds, observe how the dust motes swirled in the beams.  _

_ This happened less and less as he got older, but just the week before the fire he’d hauled Keith up in his arms and staggered into the kitchen, grumbling something about Keith getting too big for this. Keith had giggled and put up a half hearted struggle until he’d been deposited onto the couch. There he’d dozed for a few more precious minutes, lulled by the soft sound of his father puttering about in the kitchen.  _

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time he made it downstairs the family was already done eating breakfast, food gone and table cleared. Keith sauntered into the kitchen as nonchalantly as he could, trying not to draw the attention of his foster mother standing at the sink, but the obnoxious growl of his stomach gave him away. She turned with a sharp look. 

“Keith,” she snapped, “You know the rules.”

He tilted his head to the floor to hide the petulant scowl twisting his lips. Despite the nod he forced himself to give, the woman continued with her statement. 

“If you can’t be on time for meals, you clearly don’t want to eat that badly, do you?”

The words burned at the back of Keith’s throat as frustration welled hot in his chest. This had happened the last three mornings in a row-- he’d tried telling them it wasn’t his fault, but they insisted he was trying to shift the blame to Brian to escape discipline. There wouldn’t be any point to repeating himself. So he nodded sullenly again and shuffled into the living room to wait for the bus. 

~~~~~~~~~~

_ “Come on bud, we’re running late.”  _

_ A piece of toast wrapped in a paper towel is shoved into his hand as he swings his backpack over his other shoulder. It’s still warm, the heat melting the peanut butter that had been spread on it until it was practically molten. Keith took a bite and chewed, dogging his father's heels out to the beat up old pickup truck that sat beside the house.  _

_ It took two or three good twists to the key, but eventually the engine juttered to life and then they were rumbling over the packed dirt road on the way to Keith’s school. Keith carefully finished his toast and licked the excess peanut butter off of his fingers. Through the dusty window he watched the sun climb over the red canyon peaks, the saguaros casting long shadows in the dirt as they raised their spiny arms as though in greeting.  _

_ The car rides were always blissfully quiet. The only sound would be the grinding of the engine and the soft hum of the classic rock radio station his father always listened to. His father would only speak once they pulled up to curb outside the elementary school, ruffling his hair and smiling that tired smile while telling him to have a good day.  _

_ He never let Keith leave the car until he’d said ‘I love you’, and Keith had said it back.  _

~~~~~~~~~~

His new family lived several towns over from where he’d lived before, so he’d been enrolled in a new school in the same suburban neighborhood that the family lived in. In all honesty it wasn’t too bad, most people left him to his own devices, but he missed those early morning drives in the quiet and the smell of dust in the dry air. All of that had been replaced with childrens chattering and the choking smog of car exhaust. 

Still, school was school. Keith didn’t find any of the subjects particularly challenging, and he liked most of them well enough. So far none of the other kids had bothered him, and today it came more of a relief than a disappointment to walk into the building with the throngs of other children.

The day passed in a haze. Brian was a couple of years older than him and went to a nearby middle school, and without him around to pester him, Keith found himself drifting into his own head every few minutes. 

Vague, half forgotten memories of his father flitted across his mind, dragging him along in their wake. None of them were important, just sleepy mornings and lazy afternoons, but now they seemed so much more significant. He hadn’t cherished those moments when they happened, and the guilt was twisting Keith’s guts into knots more and more with each passing second. 

Keith didn’t eat lunch that day, despite the growling of his stomach. Instead he merely sat and stared into space, idly following one memory or another until the bell rang again. By the end of the day he’d given up all pretense of paying attention in class. 

The memories demanded his full concentration. He wanted to remember, to catalogue every little detail he could. Every sound, every sight, every smell, every taste, every feeling. He wanted to turn his mind into a record player and etch the memories into it. He didn’t remember his mother at all, and he didn’t think he could bear it if he forgot his father, too. 

~~~~~~~~~~

_ “Hey, dad?” _

_ “Yes Keith?” _

_ “How come I don’t have a mom?” _

_ The man paused. He was bent over the engine of their pickup truck, replacing one part or another, sweat beading his neck above the collar of his shirt. Keith had wanted to help but been rebuffed, told that he would have to wait until he turned six, and then he would be taught. So for now he sat behind his father on a stack of cardboard boxes, swinging his legs and frowning at the mans back.  _

_ “Why are you askin’?” He still hadn’t straightened, but from his angle Keith could see his knuckles turning white around his wrench, and he gnawed nervously on his lip.  _

_ “My school is having a mother-son dance.” He mumbled. One of his feet tapped on the concrete floor. “Everybody else has a mom to go with but me.” _

_ His father took a deep breath and slowly straightened up. He braced himself against the hood of the truck, still not turning around, his head hung tiredly between his shoulder blades. Keith had just begun to notice how tired his father seemed. Always so, so tired, like he was holding the world on his shoulders.  _

_ “Your mother--” His voice cracked; he cleared his throat and continued. “Your mother loved you very much, Keith. She was very brave, the bravest person I ever met, and when she left she did it to protect you.” _

_ Well, that was just a whole jumble of words and concepts that Keith definitely didn’t understand. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. _

_ “She left?” _

_ “Yes.” _

_ His father’s spine is ramrod straight now, tension ready to snap like a worn rubber band, but Keith is frowning at the floor and doesn’t notice.  _

_ “Why?” _

_ The sudden intensity of his father’s voice is enough to make Keith jump.  _

_ “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” Then he slams the hood down on the truck, tosses the wrench back into its box, and impatiently calls for Keith to follow him back into the house.  _

_ Keith didn’t bring it up again, but that didn’t mean he stopped thinking about it. He never stopped thinking about it.  _

~~~~~~~~~~

Life in suburbia was boring. Keith went home that afternoon and sat at the dining room table to do his homework, the same way as the week before, doggedly ignoring his foster brother kicking him under the table. His foster mother watched TV in the living room, and at precisely 6:30 his foster father strode through the front door. Fifteen minutes later they were eating dinner. 

Keith was ravenous after not eating all day, but his new parents were very health conscious and always refused his requests for seconds, so today he didn’t bother. The adults asked questions of Brian about his day, his friends, his grades. Nothing was directed to Keith, so he kept his mouth shut and ate his dinner. 

At 8:30 he and his father brother were marched upstairs to their shared bedroom, and after dealing with a few irritated shoves from Brian, Keith could finally crawl into bed and let the memories consume him entirely. 

~~~~~~~~~~

_ His bare feet thudded across the wooden floor, little pat pat pat’s that alerted his father to his arrival before he’d even opened the door to his bedroom. Still he managed to catch the man off guard, flying in and leaping into his father’s lap before he could put down the book he was reading.  _

_ The resounding ‘oof!’ from impact was overpowered by Keith, happily flapping his arms in the too-long jacket sleeves and making them brush loudly against the desk they sat beside.  _

_ “Look, dad, look!” He exclaimed, struggling to get himself oriented. The black vest he’d wormed his way into went far below his knees, tangling his legs together and making it difficult to maneuver. With an amused chuckle his father set his book aside, pulling Keith upright easily and finally getting a glance at his sons beaming face.  _

_ “Look! I’m you!” _

_ The man, finally understanding that Keith had donned his favorite black vest, tossed his head back and laughed. Keith giggled along, happy for no other reason than that he’d made his father happy.  _

_ “You certainly are.” He said, still biting back laughter, and tweaked Keith’s nose. “But just you wait, one day you’ll be even better than me.” _

_ Keith, only four years old at the time, hadn’t processed the statement. He’d merely thrown his arms around his father's neck and nestled into his chest. Content.  _

~~~~~~~~~~

Three weeks later, Brian shoves Keith down the stairs and snaps his wrist. The agency takes him back and has him with another new family three days later, but that’s when Keith learns. That’s when Keith stops using the word ‘family’ to describe the people forced to take care of him. He doesn’t use the word again until four years later.

When he meets Shiro.  __


	3. Raised by the Wolves-- Space Wolf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three snapshots of Keith and Kosmo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title inspired by Raised by Wolves by Falling in Reverse and also not original at all im sorry

“Listen, I don’t know how to make this any more clear. I throw the stick. You run after the stick. I mean, you could teleport to the stick but you’ll get more exercise if you run to the stick. You get the stick. You bring the stick back to me. Repeat. This doesn’t have to be complicated.”

The wolf merely tilted his head in confusion and blinked his big yellow eyes. Keith sighed and knelt down to his level. When they’d first found the wolf like creature on the back of the space whale, he barely reached Keith’s knee. Now the top of his head was level with his waist, and when Keith knelt down like this the wolfs blue ears actually made him an inch or two taller. 

“Look I know it sounds ridiculous, but I swear it’s fun. Just give it a try? Please?”

The wolf gazed at him for another long moment, then looked away and raised a paw to lick. Keith sighed and dropped his head. The wolf licked his hair. 

“We’ll try again tomorrow.”

* * *

Keith was losing. His. Mind. 

The jungle was never quiet. There were always bugs buzzing, leaves rustling, water trickling. Sometimes an animal would cry and it would echo through the trees for a solid minute. It was always hot and humid, making his Blade uniform stick to him and make his skin crawl. The fire in their little cave was crackling and popping as it burned down. 

And worst of all, Krolia was snoring.

Ok, so he was probably overreacting. But as long as he could remember little noises and textures like this had incited one of two reactions: the urge to shut down completely, and the urge to punch the nearest person. 

Now, the steady inhale- whistle- exhale- whistle and the slight flap of lips every few repetitions was making him grind his fingernails into the dirt. Every muscle he had twitched, his skin itched like a million ants had found their way into his suit, and to his horror he even felt tears beginning to sting at the corners of his eyes. 

It had been a long time since he’d had a proper meltdown like this from pure sensory overload. The last time must’ve been back at the Garrison after Shiro disappeared-- he’d melted down and punched the first person who came near him. That’s what had gotten him expelled. 

This time there was nowhere he could go. Nowhere quiet and still for him to come down. He was stuck here, for god knows how long, and the last thing he wanted was for Krolia to see him break down. He couldn’t make himself a liability to the mission, couldn’t let her see how screwed up he actually was, or she’d leave again. 

He was distracted from the burning behind his eyes by the crunching of gravel under padded paws. A cold nose prodded at his neck, making him flinch away and for a moment panic flared under his skin. The wolf huffed and there was a pause, as though he was considering what to do next, and the next moment a heavy weight was slumping across his shoulder. 

The pressure rolled him onto his back, allowing the wolf to settle himself properly over Keith’s chest. He rested his head on Keith’s shoulder, ears brushing against his cheekbone, and Keith felt all of the tension begin to seep out of him. 

Pressure helped. He didn’t keep his arms crossed all the time for no reason, after all. He had no idea how the wolf knew, but the weight of the wolf’s torso over his, the warmth seeping through the fur, was enough to make the panic recede. His muscles loosened, and within the next half an hour, he managed to find sleep. 

* * *

Despite the urgent nature of things at the Garrison, there was still a significant amount of free time to be had. Keith used that time the same way he had back on the Castle and on the space whale-- he trained with Krolia, planned with Shiro, made the rounds to check on the other paladins. Lance spent most of his time with his family, Hunk busied himself with whatever projects he could to keep himself from brooding, and Pidge was usually occupied with helping her father integrate the Altean tech into the Garrison’s defenses. 

Kosmo (which Keith had finally caved to calling him) kept close on his heels whenever he could. He didn’t like to leave Keith on his own, and true to form the blue canine was waiting for him when he emerged from a late afternoon briefing, teleporting from across the hall and directly into him. 

He stumbled back into the wall, a startled laugh punching out of his chest. The others filed out of the meeting room with barely a sideways glance-- the personnel of the Garrison had long since gotten used to the presence of the animals teleporting antics. 

“Hey buddy.” He greeted, rubbing the wolf’s head between his ears. Kosmo answered with an excited lick to Keith’s cheek before getting back down on all fours to follow him back to his bunk. 

Just before they turned the corner the wolf gave a short bark and upped his pace to a trot, disappearing around the bend. When Keith followed he was surprised to find Pidge waiting outside his door, a red leash clenched in one hand. Kosmo was sniffing curiously at the grey bull terrier on the end of the leash, which Keith recognized as the Holt’s family dog, Bae Bae. The smaller animal didn’t seem too concerned with Kosmo’s intimidating appearance and sniffed back amicably. 

“Pidge?” Keith asked once he’d drawn close enough. He wasn’t used to seeing his teammates waiting for him like this. Usually he’d have to hunt them down one by one. “What’s up?”

Pidge straightened up from her position against the wall. She didn’t look upset, and she wasn’t carrying her tablet like she would have been if she had come to discuss strategy or some sort of team problem, and then of course there was the dog. 

“Great, you’re finally back!” She said cheerfully, foregoing a greeting entirely and bounding forward like an excited rabbit. Luckily the leash was long enough that she didn’t drag Bae Bae along with her. 

“Is everything alright?” Worry was already starting to swirl in Keith’s gut, but it dispersed when Pidge smiled up at him. With things how they were smiles were rare nowadays, even from Hunk and Lance. 

“Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Bae Bae was just lonely and I thought she could use someone to play with.”

Keith opened his mouth to refuse her; after all, Kosmo was so independent, and he was so much bigger and more powerful than Pidge’s Earthborn pet, but then he glanced over at the pair of animals and the words died on his tongue. Kosmo had dropped his long body to the floor and was resting his head on his paws, eyes closed in content while Bae Bae licked the fur around his ears, grooming him. Kosmo looked so pleased, if he was a cat he definitely would’ve been purring, and his tail thumped happily on the metal floor.

“Ok.” He conceded, much to Pidge’s delight. “I guess it can’t hurt.”

The two of them took the animals into Keith’s room for what Pidge insisted on calling a play date. There Keith settled down to read some reports while Pidge went over some schematics, leaving the canines to entertain themselves. Kosmo had never quite gotten the hang of fetch, but he and Bae Bae invented their own version of the game, Bae Bae rushing at him to make him teleport away at the last moment in a shower of white sparks. The terrier would yap indignantly until she located him again, and the cycle would continue.

Eventually they tired each other out, and the next time Keith looked up from his tablet he found them curled up in Kosmo’s dog bed in the corner, happily snoozing away. Kosmo was wrapped protectively around the younger dog, who twitched and barked quietly in her sleep. 

“That’s adorable.” Murmured Pidge. Keith nodded in agreement. 

They let them sleep, working the hours away in companionable silence. 


	4. You'll Be Safe Here-- Honesty/Deceit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith chooses strange things to lie about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title inspired by the song Let You Down by Three Days Grace

Keith, as Shiro was discovering, was a strange kid. He told the blunt, honest truth when he really should’ve lied, if only to spare someone’s feelings, and lied (or attempted to) about things that really shouldn’t have been a big deal. Getting Keith to tell the truth about the littlest things was always a battle, and it was no different when he got a demerit after his first room inspection, but refused to tell Shiro why. 

It was honestly ridiculous. Shiro was standing right in the center of the room, which appeared to be spotless, trying in vain to figure out what error there could possibly be while Keith hunched defensively at his desk, avoiding Shiro’s eyes. He always did that when he lied-- if only Shiro could figure out what he was lying  _ about _ .

“Keith, seriously.” He said, trying for the fiftieth time to pry the answer out of him. “You’re not in trouble, just tell me what they said was wrong so that we can fix it.”

Keith shook his head mutely, and Shiro had to take a deep breath to keep himself from letting the edge creep into his voice. Getting angry would only provoke a fight or make him shut down, and that was the opposite of what Shiro was trying to accomplish. 

“I guess I’ll just have to figure it out myself, then.”

Keith shrank down between his shoulders even more, but didn’t say anything, and Shiro felt the faintest twinge of guilt that he had to shove away. He always felt bad having to push Keith, but Shiro couldn’t help if Keith wouldn’t let him. So he turned his full attention to the room. 

The room was, on the surface level, perfect. The bed was made to specifications, there was nothing strewn on the floor, the walls were clean, and all of his uniforms were hung neatly in the wardrobe. A cursory check of the corners and under the bed revealed nothing, but he found something squirreled away behind the spare pair of dress shoes on the floor of the wardrobe. It was a plastic bag, and when Shiro pulled it out and peered inside, he was shocked at what he found.

“Apples?” He exclaimed, turning to look incredulously at Keith. “All of this fuss over a bunch of apples?”

Keith answered by putting his head down on the desk and hiding it in his arms. Shiro paused, staring down at the bag of fruit while he tried to figure out how to navigate this situation. Keith, as strange as he was, didn’t do things for no reason, so there must be one for having a bag of apples stashed in his wardrobe. Something Iverson probably hadn’t considered-- he’d probably just told Keith to get rid of them and moved on.

“Why do you have these anyway?”

For a second, Keith looked like he was about to try lying again. His shoulders tensed for a long moment before he finally went lax and sat up, slumping back in his chair. He was still using his long hair to hide his face, but this was a step up, at least. 

“They’re… just in case.” He mumbled, barely audible, and Shiro’s eyebrows disappeared behind his bangs. 

“Just in case what?” In this position he was still mostly facing Keith’s back, but even from here he could sense the hesitation. 

It was about a minute before Keith actually answered the question, probably scrambling for a believable lie and coming up empty. 

“In case I get restrained to quarters, or banned from the dining hall or something.”

Wait, what?

In his surprise, Shiro speaks without thinking. “No one gets banned from the dining hall, and even if you got grounded you’d still get meals, those are the rules.” He straightens up from his crouched position and moved towards the desk, only to find Keith scowling bitterly at its surface.

“Maybe that’s how things are  _ supposed  _ to work,” He spat, “But I seem to have a knack for making the wrong people hate me.”

All at once Shiro realizes, and oh, that scraping sensation in his chest is probably his heart as it snaps in two and sinks into his gut. Keith is stretched taut, having shoved the chair back from the desk and poised on the edge of it as though he was ready to run. He’s one wrong word from making the situation explode, so he takes another breath and tries to think about what to say that could help, the bag of apples still dangling from his fingertips. 

Taking them away wouldn’t help. Keith would just find something else and stash it and this whole situation would repeat ad infinitum. Just trying to reassure him that no one was going to starve him wouldn’t help; he’d already been lied to and betrayed so many times, not even Shiro’s words could make him believe now with nothing to back it up. They need a compromise.

“Well,” He began carefully. “The Garrison does allow students to have non-perishable snacks in their rooms, like those boxes of protein bars they sell in the concourse. I could get a couple for you-- they’d last a lot longer than these and they won’t get you in trouble. That way you’ll have something, just in case you get hungry.” He tries not to reaffirm Keith’s fears too much. He’s not going to have them because he might be locked away and denied food, he’s going to have them in case he gets hungry before dinner. 

Keith glances over his shoulder, eyes scrutinizing. “You’d do that for me?” He means for his voice to be guarded, but a bit of vulnerability leaks in regardless. 

“Sure.” He says it with a shrug, trying to make it seem like not a big deal and put Keith at ease. “No problem.”

Finally Keith’s shoulders relax, and he slides back in his chair from his previous position, and Shiro allows himself a smile. Keith may be a strange kid, but he was a good one. All he needed was a little common human decency. 

“Thanks, Shiro.”

“Anytime buddy.”

  
  



	5. Feet Don't Fail Me Now-- Luxite Blade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and his knife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from The Drug In Me Is You by Falling in Reverse (I think)

The blade was a problem. It had been since day one, since the social worker told him he couldn’t bring it with him and Keith reacted by clinging to a wardrobe and refusing to leave his house until the poor overworked woman relented. 

After that he tried to keep it hidden from his various foster families while still carrying it with him as much as possible, with varying amounts of success. It was rather conspicuous with it’s wide blade and the purple symbol inlaid in the handle. The symbol was the strangest part of the entire thing; it almost seemed to glow, and Keith had to keep it wrapped in scraps of cloth to keep it from attracting attention.

After two years of flipping through home after home, the blade was the only thing he still retained from his old life, the one thing that hadn’t been stolen by other kids or fallen through the cracks on one of his many moves. He could remember how his father had worn it on his hip wherever he went, how he cleaned the metal lovingly every night. Keith tried to keep up the same tradition. 

At night, after whenever lights out was at that particular house, he’d pull it from his hiding place in his bag or his waistband and wipe it down, staring at his reflection in the steel. He rarely undid the cloth over the symbol, not wanting to look at the strange purple letter that didn’t match any language he’d looked up and that matched the shade of his eyes. 

He remembered asking his father about it more than once throughout his childhood. He’d never gotten much of an answer besides a tired smile and a hair ruffle, but once after his father had had a few beers he’d ventured to ask again. 

The man had smiled at him with twinkling eyes and laughed, louder than he normally did, and pulled Keith into his side. He smelled like alcohol and smoke and desert dust. 

“It’s very special.” He told Keith in a conspiratorial whisper. “When you get older it’ll be yours, and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Of course, he’d never gotten the chance.

He only stayed in the first foster home a few months before they said he was “too high matinence” and gave him back, and the knife was never found. But at the second home he got into his first fight when the couples teenaged son had mocked him for being a worthless desert rat, and when the father pulled him off of the boy his shirt had ridden up and exposed the hilt. 

The parents were alarmed that he had a weapon and before the sun set he was back in his social workers office. 

At the third home Keith was dismayed to discover that his file had marked him as a ‘problem case’, and his new foster father had performed a bag check before he was even allowed in the house.

Keith stood there in the driveway, staring down at the pavement, convinced he could feel his heart being digested. 

When the man exclaimed, “What the hell?” And straightened up with the sheathed knife clenched in his fist, something angry and possessive coiled up in Keith’s chest. The man was yelling and waving the knife around while his social worker tried to console him, but Keith didn’t hear any of it. All he could absorb was this man who was not his father, holding  _ his  _ knife,  _ his father’s _ knife, and treating it like trash. 

Before either adult could react, Keith had snatched the knife right out of his grasp and sprinted away down the street as fast as he could go. Needless to say he didn’t wind up going back to that house.

The fourth home was horrible. It had upwards of eight children in it, supervised by a selfish pair who barely did the bare minimum to take care of them and took their anger out on them, besides. It was the first time Keith had experienced being hit by someone who wasn’t his age, and it was a violent shock to the system. 

At first he just tried to deal. His social worker had already been disappointed by him enough times and he was tough, he could take it. Then one night the husband went after one of the younger kids (Shane, he couldn’t have been more than six years old) and Keith saw red.

He blinked, and his knife was drawn and in his hand, held awkwardly in his small fist. Blink, and he’s launching himself at the man desperately, not even knowing what he’s doing but having to  _ try _ . Blink, and his wrist is in the man’s hand he’s squeezing and Keith lets out a choked scream at the pain. 

Blink, and  _ crack _ , and now his vision is white and when he comes back to himself he’s in a doctors office while his foster parents explain how he fell down the stairs. A cast is put on his arm from knuckles to elbow (he’s asked to choose a color and he’s tempted to say purple but instead says red) and when they get home the parents inform them that none of them will eat until the money saved from groceries pays off the ER bill. Then the husband drags him downstairs to the basement and his wife pulls his shirt over his head and the two of them take turns with the belt until he bleeds. 

One of the older boys bandages him as well as he can, telling him he’s an idiot and he should’ve just kept his head down the whole time. 

The night the cast comes off Keith looks up how to pick locks and hotwire cars. Two weeks later he snatches his knife from the parents office, steals their car, and gets five miles from the house before the police pick him up.

The stunt earns him three months in juvie, but by then he doesn’t even care. 

By the time he meets Shiro he’s learned his lesson about the knife and keeps it the best hidden he ever has in his life. A few times he contemplates revealing it, but each time dismisses the idea. He’s at the Garrison and they don’t allow weapons, or they’re fighting the Galra and it’s not important, or the symbol on the hilt looks suspiciously like the Galra lettering they see in Pidge’s programs and he’s afraid of what it means. 

But the questions are building, they’ve been building his whole life. And then they meet the Blade of Marmora. 

The blade had always been a problem. And he wasn’t going to leave until he found out why. 

 


	6. I'm Fine/ I Know It's A Lie-- Rebel Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post Naxzela. Must I say more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song title brought to you by The Last Night by Skillet.

Keith had no idea where to go after the battle. He was a Blade now, so really he should head back to HQ with the rest of them. But at the same time Lotor had just showed up, and that was a big deal, and Keith used to be a paladin so shouldn’t he go there to help? But, then again, they’d been doing fine so far without him, maybe they didn’t need him there, maybe they didn’t  _ want  _ him there.  _ But _ …

His hands took him and his wounded jet back to the Castle before his brain could make up it’s proverbial mind, purely out of muscle memory, but he didn’t even notice when it touched down in the hangar. Instead he just sat there, ensconced by the buzz that filled his skin from his head to the tips of his fingers and toes. 

He stared down at the screens of the Galra jet, looked down at his hands, bathed in the magenta light. Rubbed his fingertips together-- he couldn’t feel them through his gloves. It took him probably a second too long to realize they were trembling. Everything felt hollowed away.

Keith isn’t sure if he’s actually alive. He remembered pulling the jet back from the shield, but nothing felt real, and in the lighting of the jet he couldn’t be sure if he was actually here or if he was a ghost, or maybe none of this was real and he was actually dying right now. 

His chest catches. He can’t seem to remember how to breathe. When he forces the breath out again it comes with a harsh punching sound-- a sob, he thinks, and he slaps one of his trembling hands over his mouth to silence it. 

If he’s alive (and the jury is still out on that) the last thing he needed to do was alert anyone to his presence. If he’s alive, what he should do is take the jet and go back to HQ, like he should’ve done to begin with instead of running back to the paladins like a lovesick puppy. 

He feels the warmth on his cheeks when the tears spill; the buzz is beginning to fade, he can feel his body again, he can feel the moisture soaking into the material of his gloves where his hand rests, and for some reason the return of sensation sends him into a panic. 

Hunching over the controls as his breath begins to come faster, Keith scrambles to try and get ahold of himself, but control is slipping away like silk through his fingers or sand through an hourglass. 

It’s not right. None of this is right. He’s not meant to be alive-- he was ready to die-- he was prepared-- no one was going to miss him-- no one needed him-- the others would be fine-- maybe he’d see Dad again--

Dimly, outside the jet, he can hear something tapping, and a voice shouting. He doesn’t understand the words until the footsteps are right outside the jet, and then he realizes it’s his name being called. 

_ “Keith, no!” _

It’s an echo of barely a half hour ago (or was it hours? He doesn’t know how long he’s sat here) when Matt had screamed into the comm and Keith had shut the channel so that he couldn’t be persuaded to turn back. 

Matt is still pounding on the hull of the jet. “Keith, open up! Please, Keith, come on!”

He doesn’t remember pushing the button to open the jet, but suddenly the blinding lights of the Castle were burning him and he instinctively ducked his head under his arms. His breath is stuttering and uneven, interspersed with wrenching sobs that were so much louder without him blocking them.

He flinches away when hands land on him, but Matt doesn’t seem to care. “Oh my God, Keith, you’re alive, thank God, thank God, thank fucking God…”

Matt pulls him bodily out of the jet and the two of them crash to the floor of the hangar. Keith doesn’t move to sit up; for a moment he just lays there, lets himself feel the chill of the metal on his cheek, and then Matt is pulling him upright.

“What the hell were you thinking?” He shouted. His eyes were red rimmed, cheeks pale. “That was crazy, that was  _ suicide _ , if Lotor hadn’t showed up you’d be  _ dead  _ right now, you idiot!”

_ Dead. Dead, dead, dead _ . Keith spun the word around in his head. Is that not what he is? He’s still shaking and crying, coming apart at the seams, and he feels so hollow inside he could probably hear his heartbeat echo if he took a moment to listen. 

“Keith. Keith,  _ look at me _ .” Matt grabs him by the wrist and jerks, making him look up at the older man’s face. The moment their eyes meet Matt’s expression crumples and the next thing Keith knows he’s being dragged into the tightest hug of his life. 

That’s when Keith splinters. 

He finally breaks down, lets the tears fall as heavy as they want to. He fists his hands into the back of Matt’s rebel cloak, for once completely disregarding the lingering anxieties of  _ whatifhedoesn’twantyouwhatifhepullsawaywhatif _ . Matt clings just as tightly, murmuring a long string of words that Keith just barely comprehends. 

“Don’t you ever do that again, Jesus Christ, you scared me. What were you thinking, we’d miss you, they miss you, Pidge fucking misses you, you martyr, Jesus…”

“Don’t.” Croaks Keith, trying to pull away. Matt refuses to release him. “They don’t. Should’ve--”

“No!” Matt’s yell is loud in his ear, making it ring. “Don’t you dare say that. You hear me? You’re here. You’re alive and you’re right here.”

“Alive…”

“Yes. You’re alive.”

_ Alive. Alive alive alive.  _

He forces himself to inhale. And exhale. And inhale. 

“There you go. Just breathe, Keith, you’re safe now.”

There are footsteps outside the hangar, a clamor of voices just outside the door. Keith stutters on his next inhale. Matt clutches him firmly to his chest. 

“They miss you.” He promised. “You matter.”

Keith exhales. His eyes are burning, his throat is rough. But he can feel all of his limbs, feel all of himself, and he inhales again. He’s alive.

Matt squeezes him one last time before the other paladins crash into the room. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im so sorry all of these are angsty i can't help it


	7. You Make Me Brave-- Lions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Keith met Blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title from Feel Invincible by Skillet

Red was his lion, there was no doubt about that. He’d proven himself to her, and she’d saved him more times than he could count. They both burned, and hurt, the same. But Red wasn’t the first lion he’d ever felt or communicated with.

No, that honor went to Blue. 

It’s strange, how that worked out. Blue was the one who kept Keith together, gave him something to care about, something to work toward, when otherwise he would’ve lost himself in his grief. Then her pilot comes along and it turns out he hates Keith’s guts. 

Nearly a year later and he could still remember the first time he’d felt Blue’s energy calling out to him, and one night when they’ve all been up too late and they’re all homesick and scared and tired of fighting, the story slips out of him. 

It had been three weeks since he’d been booted from the Garrison. When he was there he’d been like a firecracker, all rage and a desperate need to find out the truth about Kerberos. Denial, bargaining, anger. But now, out there alone in the desert in the ruins of his old family home, it was finally beginning to sink in. 

Shiro was gone. And without Shiro, there wasn’t a single person in the universe who gave a shit about him. 

That night three weeks in was the worst. 

He’d spent the day laying on the lumpy couch that doubled as his bed, staring up at the ceiling and not noticing when the blankets tangled around his legs had made him unbearably hot. He couldn’t remember what he’d been thinking about-- maybe nothing. Just radio static. 

Then the sun set and the stars came out and suddenly he’d had enough. 

He’d glared out the window at the sky for well on an hour, burning with bitterness at the memories. Him and his father, stargazing when his father couldn’t sleep and Keith was all too eager to stay up past bedtime. Him and Shiro, racing their hoverbikes far into the desert and pointing out their favorite constellations, barely getting back in time for curfew. Those same stars twinkled down on him now, mocking him. Those stars had taken everything from him. 

With a harsh tug, he pulled down the blanket he had pinned and rolled up over the window. It fell, plunging the shack into darkness, and he rolled over to glower a hole into the opposite wall. 

God, what was he  _ doing _ ? What was even the point anymore? Hadn’t this proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he just wasn’t meant to have friends, or a family? Barely anyone liked him anyway, apparently not even his  _ mother _ , and the two people who had had been killed for their trouble. 

The thoughts weren’t logical, of course, but in the darkness of the dusty shack they made perfect sense. Clearly he was cursed. The Universe had looked down upon him and spat, “Fuck this one kid in particular.” Maybe he’d done something terrible in a past life, something so awful it got him resigned to this life of loneliness. He’d been used to it, once upon a time, but having Shiro for so long had ruined him.

He couldn’t go back to being alone again. The very thought made whatever was left of his heart shrivel up and die. He’d been so close to burning out when Shiro found him, he couldn’t go back to that or there’d be nothing left but ash. 

His knife was somewhere in the room. The idea was shameful and made something sour rise in his throat, but once it was there he couldn’t shake it off. He could, it would be so easy. No one knew he was here, no one cared that he’d been expelled. Hardly anyone even knew his name anymore. It was probable no one would even find his body until his bones had been picked clean by the desert animals, bleached by the sun, and scoured smooth by the sand. Why shouldn’t he? He’d been fighting for so long, fighting his whole life to find somewhere he belonged, to find someone to care, and he was so, so tired of fighting. Why couldn’t he just let go?

Something tugged in his chest. That wasn’t unusual, he had a similar sensation every time he made himself imagine Shiro dead amongst the stars, but this one was stronger and that’s what caught his attention. It wasn’t metaphorical-- it literally felt like someone had hooked their fingers through his rib cage and pulled, but strangely enough it didn’t hurt. 

Slowly, he sat up, and whatever it was tugged again. He felt it brush over him; light, kind, almost playful before slipping away. It came back, brushed, and left. Like it was saying  _ Catch me if you can, come find me, find me _ .

Keith hesitated. Maybe he was going crazy, imagining things that weren’t there just so he wouldn’t have to be alone again. Isolation tended to do that to humans, it was a well documented fact. 

The strange energy gave another rough tug, more insistent.  _ Find me, find me _ . Keith gulped. He was teetering right on the edge. If he fell one way he would give in and search for whatever this was that very likely wasn’t real, and if he fell the other it would all be over. The thought seemed to make the energy frantic, panicked, and this time when it touched him it wasn’t a brush, it was a blanket. 

This time he wasn’t imagining the words. He heard them, just barely, a whisper through the radio static. 

_ You are brave.  _ He heard.  _ Don’t give up. Be brave. Find me.  _

He fell. 

The next morning, still questioning his sanity, he set off to begin his search for the energy. 

“I think Blue saved me.”

He expected Lance to have something to say to that. Maybe something scathing, like ‘God knows why she’d do that’, or maybe another accusation of trying to steal his lion. But Lance doesn’t say anything at all, merely stares down at his lap with a sort of empty, haunted expression. 

He’s going to ask what’s wrong, but before he can Shiro has him wrapped up in a hug, squeezing tightly, and the next moment everyone else has joined in. Red’s rumble fills his mind. 

And for once, everything is alright. 

 


	8. Bitter Taste Part One-- Free Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things out in space don't have allergy warnings on them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title from Bitter Taste by Three Days Grace.

“What is  _ that? _ ”

“This?” Hunk held up the strange thing he was chopping and got a nod from a very confused Keith, standing at the doorway to the kitchen. “It’s an elweynt bean. Got a whole bunch of them from the swap moon last week and I figured I could make chili out of them or something.” 

Keith hummed consideringly and approached the counter to scrutinise the beans further. They looked vaguely like if you’d taken two kidney beans from Earth and turned them to face each other. But only if you’d then dyed them bright bubblegum pink. 

“Aren’t brightly colored things supposed to be poisonous?”

Hunk shrugged and continued to chop. “Maybe on Earth, but the people at the swap moon were eating these just fine.”

“Those were all aliens, Hunk.”

“Technically you’re an alien too. Why are you so worried anyway, we’ve been eating alien food for months.”   
“I don't know.” Keith admitted, crossing his arms and holding them close to his body. “It’s probably nothing. They just…” He wrinkled up his nose. “Smell weird.”

Hunk raised an eyebrow, sniffing the beans cautiously before straightening up again. “They smell fine to me.”

“Right. Like I said, it’s probably nothing.”

“Ok, buddy. I’ll see you at dinner.”

As much as Keith struggled with social cues, he could know a dismissal when he was given one. So he turned on his heel and strode off down the hall towards the training deck, stomach still roiling at the smell of those beans. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it what the scent reminded him of, but it wasn’t pleasant. Some kind of unholy combination of old salt water and dried blood. 

He spent the next few hours on the training deck, and by the time dinner was called he’d mostly forgotten about the strange smelling beans. Until he’d entered the hall outside the dining room and been blindsided by a wave of the scent, making him gag and reach out for the wall to steady himself. 

He had to take a few moments, breathing through his mouth and thanking his lucky stars he was always the last person to dinner. 

_ Ok, it’s fine, you can do this. It’s just a bunch of beans, pull yourself together. _

With one last breath, he entered the dining room. Thankfully the smell wasn’t that much worse in the room, so he could find his seat and be at least semi convincing when he acted like nothing was wrong. 

“I’m a little concerned at the color.” Shiro said when the bowls of pink chili were delivered. For a moment Keith felt hope, but it was crushed when Hunk waved a dismissing hand and promised it would taste fine. 

“Don’t worry a bit, Number Two.” Coran said cheerfully, already on his third bite. “I admit I haven’t had this Earth ‘chili’ before, but I assure you elweynt beans are perfectly fine. They were a staple of Altean cuisine for many centuries before the discovery of the easily-synthesizable protein--”

Keith half listened as everyone around the table besides Allura took a small sample bite, the princess seeming just as at ease as Coran. The other paladins expressions became pleasantly surprised at the taste. Keith tried his, and didn’t realize that he’d been making the exact opposite face until Hunk asked him. 

“Keith? Is yours ok?”

He coughed lightly. “Uh, yeah. It’s just a bit, ah, bitter.” Bitter didn’t even begin to cover it. It tasted like the powdered cough medicine his father used to dump on his tongue when he got sick as a kid, only minus the artificial grape flavoring. 

Keith’s eyes promptly widened when he noticed Hunk’s crestfallen expression, Lance shooting him a reprimanding glare from across the table. 

“It’s still good.” He tried to reassure, the lie only slightly less bitter than the beans, and he shoved another spoonful into his mouth and tried to bite back his grimace. 

“I don’t know what he’s on about.” Pidge said, reaching one of her short arms for a roll of something that resembled bread. “Mine tastes great.”

“Keith’s just being a weirdo again.” Lance’s voice was so nonchalant it actually hurt. “God knows he can’t just enjoy things the rest of us like.”

Something behind his eyes burned, and he forced another bite. 

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t like it, Keith.” Hunk was trying to be sincere, but he couldn’t hide the hurt in his voice. Keith shook his head.

“No, it’s fine.”

It wasn’t fine, but he wasn’t about to admit to it. He was already on shaky enough standing with the team as it was, the last thing he needed to do was offend Hunk and incur the wrath of the rest of the Garrison Trio in the process. This was far from the first time he’d had to force himself through a meal-- far from the first time any of them had thanks to that bland food goo. He could make it through. 

Halfway through the bowl, his stomach rebelled, and he dropped his spoon with a clatter at the sudden surge of nausea. Everyone looked up from their conversations, eyes zeroing in on him like lasers.

“Keith?” Asked Shiro. “Are you alright?” 

He swallowed back the bile. “Yeah, fine, I’m just-- It’s good, Hunk, I’m just not that hungry.”

Lance scowled at him in response to Hunk’s slight expression of disappointment. 

“Come on, Keith--”

“I’ll be on the training deck.” He threw his chair back with a scrape, and before anyone could say anything else he’d hurried from the room. Damn it, he’d ruined everything, but he knew if he’d spent another minute in that room smelling that salt and copper smell he would’ve lost it. 

He didn’t go to the training room. Instead he made a beeline for his bunk and ducked into his bathroom just in time to drop to his knees in front of the toilet and retch up pink.

Keith struggled to keep himself as quiet as possible. Hunk didn’t need to deal with the guilt, and obviously the problem was just with him. As usual. Nobody needed to know. 

It took him the better part of five minutes to realize how hot he was. He’d sweated clear through his shirt, but he still shivered against the cold tile of the bathroom floor, so he didn’t take it off as he continued to heave even as it stuck to his skin. By the time the vomiting stopped his hands were shaking and he had no idea how long it had taken. 

Too long apparently, because he was still catching his breath when someone knocked on his bedroom door. 

“Keith? You in there?”

“Go away, Shiro.” Keith groaned, letting his head tip forward. So of course the door opened. 

Footsteps, and Keith has a moment to wish he could disappear before Shiro catches sight of him. 

“Woah, Keith!” His hands are blessedly cool where they land on Keith’s shoulders, and he has to resist the urge to lean into them. Thankfully he doesn’t have to fight it for long, because Shiro pulls them back in surprise when he feels the heat rolling off of him. 

“You’re burning up, bud.” He said quietly, one hand returning to rub his back soothingly. “What’s going on?”

“I dunno.” Keith slurred in answer. He’s too tired to keep up his facade. “Threw up.”

“Yeah, I see that. We should go to the infirmary and get Coran to look at you.”

Keith shook his head stubbornly, swallowing it down when the motion roused more bile. “‘S not a big deal. Don’t want Hunk to know.”

Shiro’s voice is sad when he responds. “I think we’re a way past that.”

“He worked so hard on it.” He’s astounded and ashamed to feel hot tears in his eyes and crosses his arms over the toilet bowl to hide his face. “It’s just me that’s wrong.”

“Keith, you’re not--” Shiro’s breath hitches. He’d probably forgotten how broken Keith could be. “You’re not wrong for getting sick. It’s not your fault.”

Keith didn’t answer, just made a little sound into his arms. He wished Shiro would just leave him alone-- he hated being sick in front of him. 

“I think you’re really sick.” Shiro murmured to him. His hand hadn’t stopped making those circles, and it was in danger of putting Keith to sleep right then and there. “Please let me take you to the infirmary.”

Damn it, he knew Keith couldn’t resist when he talked to him like that, all sad and mopey. If he dared look up he’d certainly been killed instantly by the puppy dog eyes. 

“Fine.” He grumbled. “But if I hurl again it’s your fault.”

“Noted.” 

Shiro hauled him to his feet, his shaky legs barely able to hold his weight long enough for Shiro to sling his arm over his shoulders. Keith’s stomach turned inside out and he gagged, but nothing came up. 

This happened several more times by the time they reached the empty infirmary, and Shiro quickly sat him down on one of the cots and pressed a trash can into his hands before rushing for the intercom to summon Coran. 

Keith was trembling all over, cold and hot and miserable. He just wanted to sleep. 

Coran strode into the infirmary a few minutes later, loud and boisterous as ever. “Well then, Number Four, what seems to be the problem?” And of course the intercom had summoned the rest of the Castle to the room as well, all concerned and curious as to why Coran was needed there in the first place, and the moment Keith caught sight of the other paladins he wanted to curl into a ball and die. 

Hunk’s face twisted up in worry and guilt and heavy shame rose up in Keith’s chest as his vision swam. This is exactly what he’d wanted to avoid. 

“Oh no, did I make you sick?” Hunk asked, interrupting Coran as he tried to ask Keith about his symptoms. “I swear I didn’t mean to--”

“It probably wasn't the food.” Pidge said, in turn interrupting Hunk. “Otherwise we’d all be sick.”

“Perhaps it’s just an Earthling disease.” Suggested Allura. Overtop of all of them Coran was still trying to get him to answer questions. 

Keith’s head spun. It was all too loud, too hot, too many thoughts and words to comprehend, and everything was turning to static. Shiro spoke quietly to Coran under the others thundering voices. He wishes he’d talk louder just so he’d have something to hang on to as his world felt like it was about to spin itself apart. 

“Great googly quiznack!” Coran exclaimed, and for a moment it makes Keith flinch, but everyone else finally shuts up when he speaks. “Princess, how could we have forgotten? The elweynt beans!”

“What about-- oh. Oh dear.”

“What? What is it?” Demanded Pidge, all while Hunk fretted to himself in the background.

“The Princess and I may have forgotten to tell you one important thing about the beans.” 

“Coran, what did you forget?” Shiro’s voice is tight, and the room is so blurry now that it’s the only thing that reassures Keith that he’s still present. 

Allura answers. “The beans are toxic to Galra.”

There’s not a moment of silence-- everyone immediately bursts into shouts and concerned platitudes and questions. Hunk is crying. Keith wants to vomit again. The words are all jumbling together, his hearing blurring just as much as his vision, but when Lance speaks it cuts right through the buzz like a hot knife.

“Jesus, Keith, why didn’t you say something?” And for some reason that makes Keith crack, just a little. 

“I  _ tried _ ,” He croaked, “I  _ tried _ ,” And then he retches again, this time bringing up pink-tinted bile into the trash can Shiro had given him. 

Instantly someone’s at his side, cool hands pulling his hair back from his face. One is cooler than the other.

“That’s enough.” Says Shiro’s voice beside him, soft but commanding enough to demand silence. “Coran, can you make a medicine or something for him?”

“Yes, yes, it should only take a few doboshes, I’ll just need…” His voice trailed into a quiet mutter as he flitted about the room in search of ingredients. Shiro holds his hair back with one hand and wraps the other around his shoulders to hold him close, trying to stave off the shivers wracking through him. 

“I’m sorry Hunk.” He managed between heaves. “I didn’t-- want to hurt--”

If he’d looked up, he would’ve seen Hunk’s expression turn horrified. 

“No! Don’t be sorry, I should have listened to you, you should’ve been able to tell me you didn’t like it.”

“I know, I know--”

“I’m not blaming you.” He sniffled and wiped the tears away. “God, it’s not your fault.”

Keith doesn’t even notice his own tears when he lets out a hoarse sob. 

“Now isn’t the best time.” Shiro said, shooting Hunk an apologetic look. “We can have this conversation when Keith is better.”

After a few minutes had passed without Keith vomiting anymore, he let Shiro take the trash can from him and lay him down on the cot. Shiro pulled the blanket up over him and tucked it in around his body, then Coran gave him a decent sized pill to swallow down.

And they finally let him sleep. 

* * *

“We need to talk.”

Lance and Shiro were the only ones still awake and in the infirmary. Pidge had bustled off somewhere, intent on making something she could use to scan all of their food in advance to make sure this sort of thing wouldn’t happen again. Coran had retreated to look for more treatment options, and Allura was disposing of the rest of the elweynt beans. Hunk was scrubbing down the kitchen, intent on making sure every last molecule of the offending legume had been destroyed. 

Lance, honestly, had wanted to go to bed hours ago. But he’d stayed up, expecting Shiro would want to speak to him about the night’s events, and it looked as if he’d been correct. 

“Yeah, I know.” Both of them are sitting beside Keith’s cot. Their red paladin is pale and sleeping restlessly, and Shiro looks just about beside himself with concealed panic.

“Really I should be having this conversation with all of you.”

“But I’m here now, so…”

“Clearly Keith doesn’t feel like he can tell the truth in front of you guys.” Lance doesn’t argue the point, knowing it’s true, and lowers his eyes. Shiro sat back in his chair with an exhausted sigh. “And honestly I didn’t expect him to. It took him ages to warm up to me. But your behavior, at dinner tonight and in general, isn’t helping.”

Lance said nothing.

“He really does want to be your friend, Lance. He can’t if you won’t let him, and now it’s gotten to the point where people are getting hurt. We can’t have rifts in communication like this.”

“I know.”

“I’m not saying you have to be best friends with him, and I’m not saying you guys can’t rib on each other a bit. Just… try to tone it down, ok?”

“Yeah.” His voice comes out choked. “I’m sorry.”

“I appreciate that, but I’m not the person you need to say it to.”

Keith shifted on the bed, brow furrowing in his sleep, and Shiro sat forward to take his hand. 

Lance rose silently and left the room. 


	9. Our Faith Will Silence the Doubt-- Pilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is the best pilot in the universe and you can fight me on that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Let You Down by Black Veil Brides.

“Keith, you’re the only one of us who could possibly fly through this.” 

Shiro knew as he said it that it wasn’t empty praise-- it was the truth. Maybe he could’ve if he was given, say, a tiny fighter jet, but in a ship the size of the Black Lion it just wouldn’t be manageable. But Keith’s piloting was more than good enough for the task and Red was small enough to make it happen. 

There was a smirk in his voice when Keith answered, and for a moment Shiro was looking out at warm desert sand rather than stars, the hum of bike engines in his ears instead of his lion, catching a glimpse of a much younger Keith’s face as he overtook Shiro. 

“Uh, are you sure about this?” Pidge’s voice shatters the illusion and he’s yanked back to where he’s supposed to be. “Last time Keith drove us over the edge of a cliff.”

Shiro can’t help but bark out a laugh at that comment. “Yeah, I know. I taught him that trick.”

There’s a smacking sound as Pidge probably attempted to hit her forehead, only to impact mostly helmet. 

“I should’ve known.” She muttered, just as Hunk chimed in on the channel.

“Besides Pidge, Keith was the best pilot in the Garrison before he got kicked out. He beat almost all of Shiro’s records, I think he can handle a little asteroid belt.”

“Alright guys, cut the chit-chat, we should meet Keith on the other side.”

Pidge blatantly ignored him. “Wait, was Keith the one Iverson was always talking about?”

“Yeah, that was him.” Answered Lance glumly, who Shiro had honestly forgotten was still in the channel with them. “There was no pleasing that guy! It was always ‘Keith’ this and ‘Keith’ that and ‘don’t screw up like Kogane’.” 

Something about that sentence made Shiro’s throat tighten up. Maybe it was because he could hear Iverson’s voice in his head speaking the words. Maybe it was the memory of Keith growing prickly and closed off every time Iverson berated him, already resigning himself to getting thrown out. Maybe it was the fact that without Shiro around that exact thing had happened. 

“Come on, guys.” He rasped, clearing his throat. “He’ll be coming out soon.”

* * *

When they finally landed back in the Castle after dealing with Rolo and Nyma, Pidge kept a sharp eye on Keith and Shiro. So she noticed Keith’s unusual grin when he took his helmet off, saw how Shiro looped an arm around his neck and pulled him in the ruffle his hair, noted how Keith’s laugh echoed off the hangar walls. 

Of course she’d inferred since day one that Keith was more proficient at flying than the rest of them. She hadn’t even been surprised to learn that he went to Garrison despite not recognizing him. He took to Red immediately, flying her with a smooth confidence that only Shiro could match, and Shiro couldn’t make his lion fly in literal circles around Lance just to make him shut up. Her and Hunk were obviously new to flying-- hesitant and gentle and easily losing control if something happened. And Lance was just a show off who didn’t actually know how to do half of the things he bragged about.

After dinner that night, while the Castle sailed in the direction of the Balmera, she managed to catch a moment of alone time with Shiro by loitering outside his bunk until he wandered by.

“Pidge.” He said with a surprised expression. “Did you need something?”

“I just wanted to ask you about Keith.” His eyebrows only climbed higher, so she scrambled quickly to finish. “He seems like a pretty good pilot.”

Shiro’s face smoothed over, but there was still a little bit of a worried wrinkle in his brow.

“Yeah, he is.” His voice is unmistakably fond.

“Better than you?” She asked, knowing that her father had insisted on Shiro for the Kerberos mission, remembering how Matt had spent hours gushing about Shiro’s piloting achievements and what they’d be able to discover with someone like him at the helm.  _ Pilot error _ danced behind her eyes. 

There’s not a moment’s hesitation before Shiro says, “Yes. Without a doubt.”

Well then. That told her everything she needed to know.

As expected, Keith was in Red’s hangar for the evening. He seemed to prefer the company of the machine to the other paladins, which Pidge couldn’t fault him for without looking like a hypocrite. He was perched on one of her massive paws, one leg dangling off while he leaned back against her leg with his eyes closed. Maybe he was talking to her, or maybe he was just taking a nap. It was hard to tell.

“Keith?”

His eyes opened easily. “Yeah? There a problem?”

“No.” Pidge said as she padded across the room. “I was just impressed by your flying today.”

Keith blinked a couple times in surprise. “Oh.” Then he ducked his head, a surprisingly shy gesture, and directed his eyes at the floor a few feet from her. “Thanks.”

“I was wondering… would you mind giving me some lessons?”

That made his head shoot right back up again. “What? Me?”

Pidge shifted her weight to her other leg. “Well, yeah. You’re the best, right? And before Voltron I’ve never even flown before, and if we’re gonna save the universe I think I need to be a little more up to snuff.”

“Oh.” He repeated. “Oh, uh, I mean, sure. I guess.”

“Great. I’m sure Hunk would love to learn some stuff from you too. Wouldn’t put any bets on Lance though.”

Keith chuckled, bringing a fist up to his mouth to smother it. “Yeah, no. We’d better be careful, or he might insist on teaching you himself.”

Pidge made a face, and Keith laughed, long and loud and open. 

“Wouldn’t you rather learn from Shiro, though? He’s older than me. And better at teaching.” 

She shrugged, daring to move forward just a bit more until she stood alongside the lion’s paw. 

“He said you were the better pilot, and after seeing you in that asteroid field today, I agree.” 

Keith flushed so red he blended in with his lion, and he seemed like he didn’t know what to say, so Pidge just gave him a cheeky smile. 

“See ya tomorrow, Professor Kogane.” She gave a mock salute and silently enjoyed how Keith huffed in mock offense and protested that he wasn’t a professor. 

Yeah, this would work out fine. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I'm not terribly proud of this one but whatever


	10. Reasons to be Missed-- Blade of Marmora

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regris, before and after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Leave Out All the Rest by Linkin Park. Also, I'm sorry in advance.

Keith ducked and rolled beneath his opponents strike. He came up on one knee, paused, and sprung directly into their armored chest, sending both of them to the floor with a  _ bang _ .

“Oh no!” Cried the masked blade underneath him. “I have been bested again! Already I see the light approaching. Tell… Ilun… I love him…”

Keith couldn’t help but laugh as he sat up and clambered off of Regris, sparing a moment to punch his arm. “Shut up, I know you’re going easy on me.”

“Of course I am.” Answered Regris as he righted himself. “Look at you, I could break you over my knee if I wanted.”

“You’d have to catch me first.”

Regris slid into a battle stance, a smirk splitting his reptilian face, and Keith rose himself up on the balls of his feet, ready to sprint. Before the battle could commence, however, the door to the training deck slid open and in came Kolivan, all business, with Regris’ partner Ilun close behind. 

Kolivan always got that weird look on his face when he caught them doing this. Keith called it sparring. Regris called it play fighting. Kolivan just shook his head in exasperation. 

“Enough, you two. We have a mission, remember?”

Ilun approached Regris, dismissing his mask so that he and Regris could brush cheeks in greeting. Keith hadn’t seen anyone else doing it, so he could only assume it was a greeting reserved for romantic couples. Still, it was cute. 

“Debrief in five doboshes. Make sure you aren’t late.” Before either of them could come up with any cheeky answers he turned on his heel and marched out. 

“Be sure you aren’t late.” Mocked Regris in a fake baritone voice, making Keith stifle laughter in the back of his hand. Ilun gave him an affectionate shove.

“Don’t do that, he’s the leader.” His eyes danced over to Keith next. “Be careful out there, kit. Your fellow paladins will have our heads if anything happens to you.”

Keith scoffed a little and shook his head. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

Suddenly his feet aren’t touching the floor anymore, and before he could even put up a struggle he’s been hoisted over Regris’ shoulders, being hauled like a sack of potatoes.

“You heard the old man!” He exclaimed, making for the door. “We have a mission to attend to.”

“Regris!” His protest isn’t very convincing when it’s interspersed with laughter. “Put me down! This is assault!”

Regris’ tail lashed behind him with delight. “Fear not, kit. I will deposit you safely at the debrief, promptly and definitely not late.”

Keith’s laughter echoed down the halls.

* * *

Turns out he was right. Keith  _ was  _ fine. Regris wasn’t.

He’d sat still the entire shuttle ride back, numb and quiet, and followed Kolivan off the ship without a second thought. The slash on his side burned. His lungs ached. His heart hung in tatters. 

Ilun was waiting for them. He swept his eyes over the returning Blades, doing a headcount, and met Kolivan’s eyes with a blank expression.

“So he’s gone, then?”

Kolivan nodded solemnly. 

“No blade?”

“No.”

Ilun didn’t say anything else, merely turned and walked away. 

Keith knew he should be prepping a shuttle to go back to the Castle, knew he was already late for another airshow, but the thought of flying the proud Black Lion in loop-de-loops while a crowd cheered in the background made him want to vomit. So he lingered, shuffling through the hallways and trying not to think too hard. 

The team was going to be angry with him. He didn’t care.

He had no idea how long he spent just wandering in circles before Ilun’s voice broke through his reverie, in that same carefully emotionless tone.

“Kit.”

Keith glanced over his shoulder at him. Still his face revealed nothing, but there was a tension to him, the set of his spine. 

“Come sit with me a moment.”

This had never happened before, but Keith is still too muted to feel surprised. So he followed Ilun to one of the empty common areas and perched himself on the edge of one of the barely comfortable couches. 

“Kolivan told me how you tried to save him again.” His voice was flat, his breathing practiced, deep, and even. This grief was probably a familiar one to him-- he’d learned how to cope. It was familiar to Keith, too, but he’d never learned. It devoured him same as it always had. 

“Yeah. Failed.” Keith winced at the way his voice cracked. Ilun didn’t react.

“It’s the trying that matters. Thank you.”

Keith’s eyes burned. “Why are you thanking me? I didn’t-- I couldn’t save him.”

“It’s the trying that matters.” Ilun insisted again. It was so much different than the last time he’d done this, when he’d yelled and fought and refused to believe Shiro was gone. Or the time before that, when he’d shouted heartbroken at Adam, blaming him, while Adam cried silently and whispered how sorry he was. 

This time there was no doubt, no belief, no one else to blame. He’d seen Regris die with his own eyes, and the only person to blame was himself. 

“You’d think I would have learned by now.” Keith doesn’t even realize that he’d spoken aloud until Ilun looks at him, and by then it’s too late to stop. “Not to get attached.”

Ilun is quiet for a moment. “I have lost many people. And in my experience, the happy memories you can form with someone is worth the pain when they leave.”

Keith hunched up his shoulders. He thinks about Shiro. He thinks about that sting when Allura had frozen him out. He thinks about the angry glares and disappointed glances he’s going to get when he finally works up the courage to return to the Castle. 

“I don’t think I agree.”

* * *

Allura is waiting for him when he gets back. He tries to talk his way out of it, but it doesn’t do anything to delay the lecture she has for him.

“The Blade can go on without you. Voltron cannot.”

He broods on that as he changes out of his Blade uniform and on the way to the training deck. Yeah, the Blade can go on without him. The Blade can go on without anyone. Even if they lost Kolivan they’d just elect a new leader and move on. Take out one paladin, though, and Voltron grinds to a halt. 

But that too was mostly his fault. Maybe they would have sorted out the Lions sooner if he hadn’t been so stubborn, so resistant, so fixated on finding Shiro. Well now they had Shiro back and things still hadn’t gone back to the way they used to be. Shiro fought him for power even as he paid lip service to his position as Black Paladin. There was an edge to Shiro that hadn’t been there before, and Keith couldn’t help but feel like he was frustrated that he couldn’t get Black to respond to him and angry at Keith for blocking him. 

Keith booted up the gladiator, set it to level four, and kept brooding even as his body went through the motions. 

All he could think now was  _ what if something happens to them? _

Regris had been so much like Pidge. Insisting on staying those last few seconds because they were so close to cracking the code, and he had a sudden vision of the Green Paladin going up in flames. 

They were just kids. Just kids from Earth dragged into a conflict too big for themselves and shoved into roles that didn’t fit. Shiro had disappeared again and he’d nearly lost himself. If he lost another friend he didn’t think he’d make it. He’d just crack, splinter apart and turn into stardust. 

“End simulation.”

The bot crashed the floor right before Keith was about to land the killing blow, and he spun angrily to see who’d turned it off. It was Lance, leaning up against the entrance to the training deck. His body language casual, his expression furious. Keith felt his own rage sparking in response. 

“Allura already yelled at me.” He spat at the other boy. “I don’t need your two cents.”

Lance raised a mocking eyebrow. “Yikes, someone’s extra crotchety today. Mind toning it down so we can have a civilized conversation?”

“I don’t want to talk. Go away.”

“No, you never want to talk, do you? Mr. ‘I-can-do-it-on-my-own’.”

The noise was thunderous when Keith’s walls came crashing down. He threw his bayard to the floor--  _ not his bayard the black bayard Shiro’s bayard _ \-- and whirled to face Lance head on, even if they were still across the room from each other. 

“Regris is dead.” He snarled, even knowing that the name wouldn’t mean anything to Lance. None of the Blades meant anything to them. “He’s  _ dead _ , I watched him die, I couldn’t save him, so forgive me if I missed one of your goddamn idiotic airshows.” It’s mean, and that’s what he wants.

_ Go away. Make him angry. Make him hate you, and when he gets hurt, when he dies, it won’t hurt like this. _

But Lance, for once, doesn’t take the bait. His angry expression drops immediately and he takes a hesitant half step into the room. Despite still being more than twenty feet apart, Keith steps back, away. 

_ Don’t let them get close. _

“Keith, I… I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

_ None of you know. _

“It doesn’t matter.” He says, absentmindedly wiping at his cheeks in case tears have escaped without his permission. “I just need to be alone.”

But Lance doesn’t leave. He just stands there, with that stupid concerned look on his face. 

“Bud, I think you’ve been alone long enough.”

Keith snorts. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

Finally Lance starts to look offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It  _ means _ you’ve hated me since day one, and you’re the one who kept me out from the rest of the team. The only one I had was Shiro, and now even he seems to hate me, too.” Shit, he hadn’t meant to say all of that. He quickly turned away from Lance’s shocked look, hiding his face as the tears returned with a vengeance. “Just  _ go away _ , Lance!”

“No.” His voice trembled, but he was standing his ground, for some incomprehensible reason. “No, I’m not going anywhere. I have to fix this.” The last part is murmured, almost to himself, but Keith still hears and it makes something in his chest burn. 

“You can’t fix me, Lance!” Not because he isn’t broken, no, because he is. But because so many people had tried and failed. He was broken beyond repair, and the sooner Lance saw that the sooner he could stop pretending to care and this whole thing would stop hurting so damn much. “I don’t need you to lie to me to make me feel better.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“I literally just said--”

“It’s not a lie.” Keith didn’t dare to look at his face. He didn’t know what he was more afraid to see-- that Lance was being sincere, or that he wasn’t. “I really don’t hate you.”

He can’t do this anymore. He whirled, keeping his eyes on the floor, not on Lance because  _ he can’t bear to look at Lance right now _ , and stormed past him, out of the room. For a moment he fears Lance will grab him, hold him there, force him to stay, but he doesn’t. 

Keith walks away. 


	11. Forever and Always-- Siblings In Arms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Paladins are a family. So obviously they have to tease each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Dead Inside by Skillet. Or Devils Night by Motionless in White, I guess, you can choose.

“The Galra planned this on purpose.” Shiro is as tired and frustrated as all of them, pinching the bridge of his nose as he stared down at the holographic map. “They attacked in so many places at once because they knew we couldn’t defend them all, and they know there’s a limit to how many wormholes you can make.”

“I can keep going.” Protested Allura. She was pale and sweat was sticking the hairs that had escaped her bun to her face, but her brow was furrowed in determination. 

Coran began to protest, only for Shiro to beat him to it. “I’m sure you can, but I’m not sure  _ we  _ can. The Lion’s are barely operational; Yellow and Black will need serious repairs before they can return to the battlefield. Pidge is running on empty, Lance busted his knee in the last planet-side skirmish, and I’m pretty sure Keith is hiding at least one injury.”

“Hey, I didn’t--”

“You always do. I’m sorry Princess, but I think we have to retreat.”

Heavy silence fell over the room. Allura dropped her head between her shoulders, braced up against the table with the map. Coran hovered at her back, concerned and singed from some engine problems he’d had to solve. The younger paladins were clustered near Pidge’s chair-- Pidge slumped in the seat with her head on her knees, Lance using the back of the seat to hold weight off of his injured knee, and Keith subtly leaning on a tired looking Hunk with a hand wrapped around his abdomen. 

None of them liked the idea of retreating. Retreat meant failure, retreat meant more planets under the Galra’s control, more people suffering. But they all knew they couldn’t win every battle, and they all had limits. Those limits had been reached and pushed beyond about two hours ago.

Lance sighed in that dramatic way that he had. “Well, I guess that’s how life be on this bitch of an Earth.”

Pidge raised her head, frowned, blinked up at him like she knew there was a problem somewhere but couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

“Lance… we’re not even on Earth.”

“Yes, I’m aware, thank you for shattering my delusion, Pidge.”

Allura straightened her shoulders. “Alright, I think I can manage a wormhole to get us out of the way for long enough to patch up.”

The others are still too stuck on Lance’s statement to pay attention.

“More like, ‘that’s how life be on this bitch of a Castleship.’” Keith mused, prompting an offended exclamation from Coran. He may not have known what the word ‘bitch’ meant on Earth, but he at least knew it was a swear.

“Stop swearing in front of the child.” Scolded Hunk. 

Pidge shot him a dirty look. “Fuck you.”

“See what you two have done?”

Allura and Shiro exchanged strained expressions before Allura moved to the console to begin opening the wormhole. Shiro’s original plan was to go to his own seat, but the continuing conversation grabbed his interest.

“You don’t need to worry about Pidge, the real child around here is Shiro.”

Keith was met by three baffled looks and one scowl. 

“Keith, don’t you dare.”

“Don’t you dare what?” Lance asked. “Come on Mullet, you gotta tell us now.”

“ _ Keith _ .”

“Shiro’s birthday is on February 29th.” Said Keith with an impish grin. “He’s technically only six years old.”

Shiro let out a heavy, heavy sigh as the other paladins exploded into excited exclamations and the Alteans looked on in confusion. 

“You traitor. I can’t trust you with anything, can I?”

Keith merely shrugged, extending his arm for Lance to lean on so that he could help him to his seat for the trip through the teladuv. 

“The moral of the story, kids.” Hunk chimed in with a smile as bright as he could imagine in this situation. “You can trust Keith with your life in battle, but you can’t trust him with embarrassing secrets.”

Pidge snickered into her fist. “Hey, Keith, wanna hear how Lance--”

“No! No he does not! You shut your quiznack, little green gremlin.”

“You still aren’t using that word correctly.”

“Shut your fuck, Keith.”

Keith dropped Lance unceremoniously into his seat and vaulted into his, prompting a mutter of ‘Showoff’ from Lance that he ignored and wince that he tried (and failed) to conceal. 

“I’m pretty certain you didn’t use that word correctly, either.” 

Lance groaned aloud. “Shirooooo, not you too!”

“Paladins, please!” Allura sounded distinctly stressed out, and for a moment Shiro felt bad for contributing to the madness, but he also didn’t. The last thing he wanted is for the others to lose their sense of humor in all of this. “I need to concentrate!”

The paladins obligingly fell into silence, but it wasn’t going to last long.

* * *

A day and a half later everyone was whole and out of the cryopods, which Shiro couldn’t manage to convince himself was a good thing. All of the paladins were grouped in the lounge, waiting for Coran to finish repairing the Lions and for Allura to figure out where they should go next. Meaning: they had nothing to do. Meaning: they got real annoying, real quick.

“There’s no way that was me!” Lance protested, sitting crosslegged on the floor between Pidge and Hunk. They were currently trying to remember who it was who had angered the beast on Plathium II that looked astoundingly like a T-Rex, which had then proceeded to chase them around the planet for an hour straight. “I’ve seen Jurassic Park, I know better!”

“My memory is better than yours.” Argued back Hunk just as passionately. “And I distinctly recall that it was you who got all excited about a “real life dinosaur” and woke it up!”

“Yeah, well…” Lance was floundering, until his gaze landed on Keith, sitting next to Shiro on the couch with his knees pulled up to his chest and reading something on the tablet he had propped against them.

“At least I didn’t want to bring home a literal dragon for a pet!”

Keith didn’t even look up. “Dragons are cool-- if you had the opportunity to have a pet dragon you would jump at it too.”

“I don’t need a pet dragon, I have Blue. Besides, Red can fly and breathe fire, isn’t she a dragon already?”

Keith shrugged and swiped his finger across the tablet screen to turn the page. “That’s true, I guess. But dragons are cool.”

“Is that your only argument, ‘Dragons are cool’?”

“Yup.”

“That’s a terrible argument!”

“I dropped out, remember? Not like Montgomery is here to grade my arguing skills.”

“Well  _ we  _ are! We have opinions too, ya know!”

“A pity… If only I gave a fuck.”

Pidge couldn’t take it anymore and burst out laughing, rolling backwards onto the floor in the process. Hunk was snickering too, hiding it in his palms, but Shiro merely gritted his teeth, glowering down at the report he’d been trying and failing to read for hours. 

“I swear,” He growled, making them all stop and look up at him. “I am about ten seconds from shoving you all back into the cryopods just for some peace and quiet.”

For a moment they’re solemn. Only for a moment, until Keith gives him that knife’s edge smirk and raised an eyebrow in challenge.

“You should take your own advice, Shiro.”

“And what’s that?”

“Patience yields focus.” He does it in his best impression of the Black Paladin, low and gravelly and serious, and it has the other paladins immediately bursting back into fits of giggles while Shiro just stared at Keith in utter betrayal. 

“Alright,” He says eventually. “You asked for it.” Before Keith could react he threw his tablet to the side and lunged for him. 

Keith put up a valiant fight, kicking and struggling, but he couldn’t escape the Galra prosthetic wrapped around his neck and eventually had to succumb to the laughter as Shiro tickled him mercilessly.

“Shiro!” He gasped between bouts of laughter. “Shiro, stop! You’re killing your brother! This is murder!”

Lance, Pidge, and Hunk are absolutely losing their shit as they watch this go down, especially when Keith accidentally kicked his tablet and sent it flying across the room. Thank God for impact resistant Altean tech. 

Keith has tears in his eyes when he finally surrenders. “I give, Shiro I give, lemme go--”

Shiro obligingly releases him and the Red Paladin slumps off the sofa and onto the floor, still breathing hard and choking on laughter. 

“Somebody pissed off Space Dad.” Said Lance in a stage whisper, and Shiro flushed.

“I’m not Space Dad!”

And so the cycle would repeat, ad infinitum, but it wasn’t so bad. After all, isn’t that what family does? 


	12. Till the Well Ran Over-- Frenemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Keith and Lance are friends. But not always.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from 6 Gun Quota by Seether.

Keith and Lance weren’t friends.

Except they were, sometimes, and then they wouldn’t be again. They bickered like an old married couple, and approximately 65% of their jabs were harmless. They worked well together in battle, to solve problems, kept each other going through their rivalry which Keith still insisted was one-sided but went along with anyway. 

And then, sometimes, things would go up in flames. Some days Keith wouldn’t be in the mood to socialize, or Lance would be homesick, and a well intentioned joke would be like a splash of gasoline on a pilot light. 

Lance had a special knack for saying the right thing at the right time. Usually he used his powers for good, to assist in diplomacy or comfort an upset teammate. But sometimes when they fought he didn’t mind his words, and managed to say the thing he knew would hurt Keith the most.

Keith never showed how upset the fights made him. He’d storm away, fight the gladiator for hours, trick Lance into continuing to think that anger was the only thing he felt. Then he’d find somewhere to hide and bite back the tears, kicking himself all the way for being weak.

And based on how this conversation was going, this was fixing to be one of those nights.

They’d been arguing about something pointless for well on twenty minutes now. Keith had wandered into the lounge to find Lance trying desperately to get Hunk and Pidge’s attention, while they in turn tried their best to get their work done. Keith had taken pity on all three of them and pulled Lance’s attention away, though the sting of being ignored was still obvious in the strained tone of Lance’s voice.

Keith doesn’t even remember what he said that set him off. But suddenly Lance’s eyes are shooting ice shards at him, and his voice is like a glacier when he speaks.

“Who even asked you, Keith?” It’s not a harried exclamation, it’s a cold, flat question, and that’s all it takes to make Keith pause. 

Because really… no one had asked him. No one ever did, because they and he knew that anything he had to say would be interpreted as hot headed, or impulsive, or cold, or stupid. Because really… what did he have to contribute anyway. Hunk and Pidge don’t know him and don’t seem like they want to. Allura still side eyes him from time to time. With Voltron there hadn’t been time to talk to Shiro like they used to. 

And in Voltron his opinion just didn’t matter. He was too impatient to be a strategist, wasn’t smart enough to contribute to tech problems. He was good at flying and fighting, and neither of those things required him to speak. He may as well have been a combat drone with faulty programming.

All of this goes through Keith’s mind in less than a second, and Lance isn’t done. 

“What are you even doing in here anyway? Don’t you have some droids to kill or some brooding to do? Far, far away from us?”

Keith’s throat constricts. Right, of course, he hadn’t been invited, hadn’t been asked to join. He always forgot; he and Lance weren’t friends. He was a distraction, a punching bag. Hunk and Pidge weren’t his friends either-- just a group of people forced together by crazy random happenstance. 

The dismissal was blatant. ‘You don’t belong here, go back to the dark and the shadows. Go be alone again, like you’re meant to be, until I need someone to vent on again’. 

So Keith got up from the couch. “Right. Sorry.” And he left.

He’d been alone for a year, for most of his life before that. What would one more day be. 

* * *

The entire room fell silent in Keith’s absence, even Pidge and Hunk looking up from their project to watch him leave. 

He’d said sorry. Keith never said sorry, especially not to Lance. He always lashed back, came up with something else to say before storming off. Never… whatever that was.

“Wow, Lance.” Pidge muttered darkly under her breath. “Tell him how you really feel.”

“I didn't mean he should actually leave.” Lance said, trying to defend himself. He crossed his arms over his chest, an anxious feeling rising that somehow he’d really, really fucked up. “I thought he’d say ‘make me leave’ or something.”

“I don’t know man.” Said Hunk with forced nonchalance. He had turned back to the mess of tech in front of him, though he was merely fiddling with a few wires, not actually doing anything with them. “You sounded pretty harsh.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

Pidge sighed loudly and threw back her head. “For God’s sake, just go say sorry before this gets any worse.”

_ Nope, not a good idea _ . When Keith was pissed, as Lance had learned the hard way, the best course of action was to let him simmer down for a few hours before making an approach. And yeah Keith hadn’t done his usual show of crashing out of the room like a bull in a china shop, but it was just a foregone conclusion that he would be pissed off. After all, he’d never seen Keith react any other way. 

* * *

Keith dragged himself to the dining room at the appointed meal time, hoping the cold water he’d washed his face with would dispel the red puffiness around his eyes. The rest of the team had enough to deal with-- Shiro didn’t need to be worried about Keith acting like an elementary schooler on top of it. 

Everything seemed normal at dinner. Lance was just as loud and boisterous as ever, easily dragging Coran into long tangents, playfully flirting with Allura, prodding Pidge into making sarcastic comments at his expense. Keith knew he was being a bit obvious-- being too quiet and picking at his food, but who would notice over the din Lance was making?

Shiro. Shiro would notice.

“Keith, are you alright?” Keith jumped at his voice and quickly forced himself to sit up straighter. Shiro was watching him with those concerned eyes he was so good at, and if his question hadn’t dragged over the attention of the rest of the table, Keith might’ve just been able to tell him. But now? You wouldn’t be able to pay him enough money to admit in front of everyone that he was moping because Lance had been mean to him. Nope. No way. 

“Fine. Just tired.”

Across the table, Lance looked down at his plate and swirled his fork through the green goo. He almost looked guilty, but Keith must’ve been imagining it. Wishful thinking. Lance was never guilty. 

Abruptly, Keith pushed back from the table and stood. “I think I’m just gonna head for bed.”

He listened as he headed for the door, expecting hear a quip from Lance about how he was probably going to the training deck instead. But he didn’t. Rather there was a babbled excuse, the scrape of another chair, and footsteps.

Keith sped up his pace, managing to make it halfway down the hall before the door slid closed behind Lance and he was calling for him.

“Wait!”

He paused. His hands curled into fists at his sides. He could feel the walls rising already, the protective shell of anger settling over him like a second skin. If only this had happened earlier, then maybe he would’ve been able to hit back, and things wouldn’t hurt so much.

“What?” He snarled, barely turning his head. “Got more frustration to take out on me?”

“No.” Lance’s tone is so remorseful it makes him turn all the way, look at him over his shoulder, and he looks like he just watched his puppy get run over. That doesn’t make the tension dissipate at all.

“I just wanted to say that I was out of line earlier. And I’m sorry.”

Now  _ that  _ throws him through a loop. 

“Wh-what?”

“I’m sorry.” Lance repeated, taking a step forward. Keith finally turns to face him. “I didn’t mean what I said, and I shouldn’t have said it. We really do like having you around, Keith.”

Keith stepped back, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. That just sounded too good to be true, and there were already a million reasons as to why Lance would lie buzzing around in his head. 

“Did Shiro put you up to this?”

That would make sense, Shiro wouldn’t want the paladins fighting if it could compromise Voltron, but Lance merely gave him a confused frown. 

“Huh? No, nobody put me up to this, I really am sorry.”

“You’ve never been sorry before.”

“Before?” Lance tilted his head, moved a few steps closer, and Keith is really beginning to feel as though he was being hemmed into a corner. “You never seemed that upset before.”

His expression suddenly softened, and  _ shit,  _ he’d given himself away. 

“Have I hurt you before?”

Keith looked away. “It doesn’t matter.” He forced himself to say, voice rough. 

“But it does!” Lance, for some reason, almost sounds offended. “I want to know if I’m hurting my friends.”

“But we’re not friends.” He can’t stop the words from escaping, despite Lance’s horrified look. “You’ve hated me since day one, you just put up with me because you need something to distract you when you’re homesick.” 

Lance is already shaking his head halfway through Keith’s sentence. “No, that’s not true! I don’t hate you, and I’m so, so sorry I made you think that I did. I do want to be friends, I swear.”

This had no precedent in his experience, no frame of reference, and now Keith has to try and sort through all the confusing emotions that just rose in his chest. He kind of wants to cry. He kind of wants to smile until his cheeks hurt. He also kinda wants to hug Lance, a thought that shakes him so badly he just says the first thing that pops into his head. 

“Does that mean you’ll stop making fun of my hair?”

  
  



	13. The Time That Remains-- It was an honor to meet you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith-- A Blade in his own right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Time That Remains by Three Days Grace.

Things weren’t exactly going well for Thace. 

At the moment he was staggering down the hall towards the Command Center as quickly as he possibly could, what with the wound and the broken armor and the electrocution. As much as it hurt, as much as he just wanted to crumple to the floor and give up, he knew he had to keep moving. The attack the paladins were launching was imminent and he had to get the system shut down in time or the whole thing would fail. All he had to do was get to the console and shut it down, that was it, and then he could be done. Whether the druids caught him again or if the Blades got him out, either way he would be done.

The door slid open for him, surprisingly not having been locked to his fingerprints yet. At any other time this would have been suspicious, but right now he couldn’t spare the energy to think about anything besides his mission. 

Just put in the codes. That was all. 

He made his painful, shuffling way across the catwalk to the console. It lit up at his touch and he began to input the codes as quickly as he could make his fingers move. His hands were shaking, and his eyesight was blurry from the right one being so swollen, but he made sure the codes were correct as he put them in. There was no margin for error. 

Thace was so immersed in his task, in the effort of getting every keystroke correct, that he didn’t hear the door sliding open again. But he definitely felt the icy tingle that ran down his spine at the sound of the Druid’s voice.

“And now we know you were attempting to shut down the system.”

He barely turned his head, saw the swish of the dark robes as the two Druids launched towards him, but he didn’t stop typing. They were halfway across the catwalk when he pressed the final key, and he spun around, bracing himself against the console when his knees gave under his weight. 

“You’re too late!” The code was implanted. The Paladins could shut down the ship and the plan would work. His job was done. 

The Druids paused on the end of the platform, staring him down through those golden slits in their masks. No one knew what the Druids were or what they looked like, and Thace really didn’t want to find out. 

“No, Thace.” One of them growled. “ _ You’re  _ too late. We already changed the code.”

His whole body went cold. He had to dig his claws into the console to keep from collapsing right then. The console began to beep rapidly, rejecting the numbers he had so painstakingly entered, and he turned to stare at it in horror. The Druids moved toward him again, but he barely gave it a thought.

This was it. He’d failed his mission. It was over. 

The next few seconds went past in a blur. The Druids rose into the air, amethyst orbs of lightning already crackling between their clawed fingers. Thace braces himself as best he can, but at the last second a white and red blur catches his eye. One of the Druid’s freezes, shrieks in pain like claws over rusty metal, and with a crackle of lightning disappears. A Blade clattered to the floor in its wake just as the white and red blur comes to a stop near the edge of the platform to Thace’s right.

At first he doesn’t even look at whoever just saved him. Instead his eyes are focused on the Blade lying inert on the floor-- that Blade form he hadn’t seen in almost two decades. There was no way. It just wasn’t possible. Krolia was in deep cover, had been for years, there was no way she could be here, and yet--

The other Druid was still there, and now he wasn’t playing around. A dark beam of energy launched towards him, and he barely snapped himself out of his reverie in time to dodge the attack. He went right first, then left as the beam dissipated, drawing his own Blade. The Druid fired again, this time at the figure in white, who rolled under it and retrieved their Blade from where it had fallen. 

Now that he could see the person, he knew that it definitely wasn’t Krolia. They were wearing strange white armor with red accents, with a jetpack on the back, and was probably an entire foot shorter than Krolia had been the last time he saw her. The person (whose face Thace still couldn’t get a glimpse of) rolled onto their feet and lunged for the Druid, a quick burst from their jet pack assisting. 

The Druid raised a hand and caught the person on the side with a small crack of lightning, knocking them off course and over the edge of the catwalk. Thace heard the telltale screech of a Blade being dug into metal and could only assume they hadn’t fallen. But their attack had given him time to get into position, and now he could take his own strike at the Druid.

Still, he was injured, and it showed in his slowed movements. The Druid vanished before the swipe of his Blade and Thace spun on his heel. As he’d predicted, the abomination had appeared behind him, trying to surprise him, and met the next swing of his Blade with a deflection of claws. 

His mysterious partner reappeared over the edge of the catwalk, propelled by the jet pack once again, and went right back after the Druid. It dodged his first attack, vanished after the second, reappeared in mid air and sent two short strikes of lightning that they barely managed to evade. The Druid turned, power surging in their palms, and didn’t notice until the last moment that Thace was charging them. 

Blade met magic, and for a long moment held there in stalemate before Thace slipped and power surged past his right shoulder. He gave ground just as the white blur came back with a roundhouse kick that bowled the Druid right over into Thace, who seized the opportunity (and the Druid), and he threw it as hard as it could into the power crystal.

Electricity surged, and with one last shriek, it dissipated into dust.

Thace picked up his Blade, took a single step towards the console where his mysterious rescuer was waiting, and then they turned to face him and he froze in place.

It was like looking at a ghost. The same sharp chin, angular eyes, battle determined expression, and with the Blade still elongated in his grasp Thace could almost convince himself Krolia had come back. But no, the skin was too pale, eyes the wrong color, and far far too short.

“Thace, I’m Keith, a paladin of Voltron.”

Suddenly he remembered why Krolia was in deep cover, why he hadn’t seen his friend in so long, and oh  _ hell _ she was going to kill him. She’d never told him the name of the Earthborn child she’d had that had gotten her into so much trouble with Kolivan, but there could be no doubt. Her son was here, in space, fighting the Galra, and she wasn’t going to be happy when she found out.

His eyes were glued to the sword in the boy’s hands, and he really shouldn’t give away what he knew but he couldn’t help mentioning it, just a bit.

“And a fellow Blade, I see. I guess we haven’t failed.” Because, right yes the mission was still something he had to worry about not just Krolia’s wrath. 

“Not yet.”

Thace sheathed his Blade. “I’m sure you heard, but Haggar has changed the codes. I know another way to shut down the ship, but it’ll take more time.”

Keith caught his meaning immediately. “I’ll secure the door. You do what you need to.”

Thace went to the generator on the left of the platform while Keith went to the door, pulling out not just one but all of the main power hoses. He was kneeling next to the console plugging them in when Keith returned, and Thace caught the tail end of his conversation through his comms, probably to the other paladins.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“I’m using the main power to overload the system.” It was vague, but Keith’s eyes widened all the same and yup, he was very much Krolia’s son there was no way he wasn’t when all of their expressions matched  _ that  _ well.

“You’re turning the room into a bomb?” His tone was both surprised and accusatory, and an unasked question floated in the air between them.  _ ‘This could kill you, are you sure?’ _

“It’s the only way.”

It took barely a dobosh before they were discovered and Haggar was literally melting her way into the room, and Thace would’ve had to deaf to not hear the explosion that went off when she finally broke inside. But he didn’t turn from the console, trusting in Krolia’s son, the paladin, to watch his back like he said he would as he worked to overload the console. 

The sound of blasters firing echoed through the huge chamber. A pause, and then another series of blasts and a great splintering sound before a crash that shook the whole catwalk. Keith must’ve fired at the crystal that killed the druid and made it fall in front of the door. Genius.

“That solves one problem, but now we’re trapped in here.”

Thace turned to face him and jolted. He still couldn’t get over how much the kid looked like his mother.

“No, we’re not.” Or at least, he wasn’t. “There’s an exit through the main power conduit.” He pointed over the edge of the catwalk and Keith went to investigate while he continued. “It leads to the second deck. Go, now.”

Keith looked at him with a strange expression. Was that surprise? Surely it couldn’t be. They all knew the stakes of the mission, sacrifices shouldn’t be astounding. Yet here was Keith, astounded.

“What? No, I’m not gonna leave you.” He said. There was a current there, a thread; raw desperation, and it hurt. Then again, that might also have been the torture wounds. 

“You must. I will shut down the system.”

He still had that look on his face, that stubborn look Thace recognized all too well, and they really didn’t have time for it. Krolia would kill him if he let her son die.

“Paladin, this is where my journey ends.” He’d known it for some time now. “But as a member of Voltron, you have a bigger mission.”  _ The mission is more important than the individual _ . “You must understand that.” 

Keith frowned at the floor, mulling it over, and when he looked up again he wore a different expression. Determination… and respect. 

“It was an honor to meet you.” 

Before Thace could respond the crystal blocking the door exploded, showering them both in small shards. 

“Go, now!”

Keith passed off the stolen blaster to him, and with one last look, vaulted off of the platform. Thace slapped the screen one last time before himself jumping over the console and hunkering down behind it to avoid the blaster shots of the drones that were beginning to flood the room. The detonation should take about thirty tics, hopefully enough time for Keith to get clear. 

As he counted down in his mind, he closed his eyes, and unbidden the thought of Keith’s words came back to him. 

_ It was an honor to meet you _ .

He smiled.

_ Likewise, paladin.  _

  
  



	14. Heart of Fire-- Red Paladin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Red do some bonding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title from Heart of Fire by Black Veil Brides. Random question, but if I made a playlist for this fic series would any of y'all listen to it?

It was the evening of their first full day on Arus, their first full day of training, and they’d just finished a late dinner after successfully forming Voltron. All of them were tired and sore and ready to collapse into bed, but apparently the Princess had other ideas. 

Even Shiro looked a little dismayed when she announced they’d be doing another varga of training before bed, and Keith barely swallowed down his angry words. He was so tired, and he was pretty sure if he had to to put up with Lance purposefully trying to rile him up one more time he might actually just deck him. 

“You’re going to be doing individual bonding with your Lions.” Said the Princess, and oh, ok, that might not be so bad. An hour chatting with his semi-sentient psychic magic Lion spaceship. No problem. The others seemed to share this sentiment and they all went down to the Hangers without a fight, scattering to the corners of the room to commune with their respective beasts. 

Red was probably the second smallest Lion of the bunch, but she still loomed large over him, slightly intimidating. He looked up into those grey eyes and tried not to let his voice tremble when he spoke to her. 

“Hey, Red.” 

For a moment he’s afraid she’s not going to respond-- that she’s going to lock him out again now that he got her away from the Galra, but at the sound of his voice her eyes lit up gold. 

“Allura says we have to bond some more.”

An playfully irritated growl rippled through his mind, tinting his vision scarlet for half a second, and he can’t help the chuckle that escapes him. 

“Yeah, I know, but she’s the Princess.”

Sufficiently reassured that the Lion wasn’t going to eat him, Keith moved forward and clambered up onto one of her huge paws, tucking his knees to his chest while he stared up at the underside of her chin. It felt a little odd, speaking out loud to a ship, but the others’ voices bounced across the room to him and made him feel a little less out of place. 

“So… what do you want to talk about?”

There was no growl this time, just a brush of offense. 

“I don’t know either! I haven’t had to have a proper conversation in a year.” 

That’s a harsh ripple, almost a swipe,  _ 10,000 years _ , and Keith winced.

“Right, sorry.”

Who would’ve thought that his terrible social skills would also extend into offending a freaking spaceship. That was him, boldly going into new frontiers of social faux pas where none have gone before. 

Red rumbled again, less a growl and more of a purr, and a bit of warmth glanced off of his shoulders. She was forgiving him. There was a tug, a bit of a pulling in his chest and Keith instinctively resisted. She stopped at once-- he was never one to follow blindly and forcing him would do no good-- and Keith felt the gentle prod when she changed tactics. 

_ Trust _ , she seemed to say,  _ trust me paladin _ .

Trust. Could he manage that? It had been a long time since he’d had anyone to trust, since he’d relied on anyone but himself-- but at the same time, he had thrown himself into space for her. Surely whatever she wanted to do now couldn’t be any worse than that. 

“Alright.” He murmured eventually. “I trust you.”

A pleased purr, and then the tugging returns, and this time Keith makes an effort not to pull against it but instead follow where Red wanted him to go. He let his eyes close as warmth wrapped him up; like sitting next to a fireplace with a blanket around your shoulders; and didn’t fight when the images flickered into existence.

They were high up, blue sky all around them, and when Keith looked down he didn’t see a cockpit but instead a city, sparkling and gleaming beneath him. He was seeing through Red’s eyes, seeing one of her memories, and without Lance there to distract him it was actually working. He took a deep breath and relaxed into the feeling of floating. 

Someone else was there, guiding Red (Or Keith? It was hard to tell where he began and she ended) into complex turns and maneuvers, weaving between familiar white turrets and towers. He  _ loved  _ flying, Red loved flying, and so did whoever was guiding them. He could feel them resonating together, working in tandem, basking in the adrenaline rush and the joy of being high above the ground where nothing could bring them down. The other person's spirit sang out to them and Red sang back, so happy it almost hurt. 

_ Your first paladin _ .

Red rumbled, a sad acknowledgement, and the images faded. When he came back to himself he could feel her grief, that familiar sharp sting and heavy ache, the regret, and he reached back out to her before he could stop and think.

_ Me too _ . He tried his best to convey.  _ I know how you feel _ .

A confused trill (almost like a house cat) and Keith would’ve laughed if he wasn’t already guiding Red into a memory of his own. It took him a moment to find one-- it had been years since he let himself remember, but after a bit of a struggle something rippled into existence. 

Warm arms. Purple eyes. Rough, husky laughter. The smell of salt and smoke. A velvet sky full of stars stretching overhead. 

The sky didn’t change but the image did, finally forming something besides fragments he’d shoved away for too long. Now it was hover bikes racing across the desert, dust kicking up behind them, Shiro’s black jacket up ahead of him and voices snatched away by the wind as they yelled encouragements and taunts to each other. 

Keith kept his eyes closed even after he let the memory go, not ready for the brightness of the Altean castle just yet. He felt breathless-- remembering hurt but it also felt so, so good. Red was with him. She hurt the same. Another rumble echoed, but this time not just in his mind. It was out loud, bouncing through the hangar and calling the others attention but Keith didn’t even notice their footsteps approaching. Red was there like a desert sunbeam, warming him up and thawing out the frost that had formed over the last year he’d spent lost and alone without a purpose or a friend. 

He pressed back on her, trying to chase away the remnants of purple metal and the Galra trying to force their way past her barrier when she was so tired and so far from anyone who knew her. 

_ It’s ok, Red. We have each other now. _

“Keith?” 

A hand landed on his shoulder and broke his trance. Shiro had climbed up onto Red’s paw beside him, looking at him with barely concealed concern while the other paladins looked on in confusion. 

“Are you ok?”

Keith blinked a few times. “Yeah. Just talking to Red.”

Shiro’s voice dropped lower to keep the others from hearing. “You’re crying, bud.”

Shocked, Keith brushed at one of his cheeks and felt his fingers come back wet. 

“Oh. Didn’t even notice.”

Shiro bit his lip, still worried, so Keith gave him the best smile he could muster up. 

“I’m alright, Shiro. I promise.”

 


	15. All I Want-- Sweet Tooth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is homesick, and Hunk decides to do something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from The Good Life by Three Days Grace. Also I may have.... misunderstood the prompt on this one but I hope you like it anyway

According to the Earth calendar Pidge had managed to put together, it had been exactly one year since they’d left Earth to fight the Galra, and absolutely everybody was depressed about it. (Well not the Alteans, but the point stands). All of the paladins had been moping all day, especially Lance and even Keith, despite his attempts at hiding it, and quite frankly Hunk had had enough. 

Yes, they were all far, far away from home. Yes, they all missed their families. Terribly. Yes, they were all aware that they were in an intergalactic war spanning more time than all of human history. But goddamnit, that didn’t mean they had to wallow.

So he marched himself right on down to the kitchen, and he did the same thing he usually did to solve a problem: he baked. Sure, there would have to be a lot of approximation and substitution and more than a few concessions as to what the items were supposed to taste like, but hopefully he could get close enough to what he wanted. 

First of all-- peanut butter cookies for Pidge, using some beans he got from the Olkari that kind of tasted kind of peanutty. He made sure to use the translator Pidge had built for him so that he wouldn’t accidentally break anybody's teeth this time. 

For himself he also made cookies, though his were warm and gooey chocolate chip. The smell when they began to bake wasn’t quite right-- more spicy than chocolatey-- but it was close enough to make tears well up in his eyes, and he had to take a break to compose himself. Soon the others would smell what he was up to and come wandering down, and he didn’t want to be crying when they were all already miserable enough. 

On the last planet they’d visited he’d picked up several pounds of strange blue fruit, shaped kinda like the letter Q. They tasted like something somewhere between a banana and a guava, so he chopped up a bowl of them and started to whip up pastry for Lance’s pastelitos de guayaba. He was halfway through when the first curious paladin poked their nose in-- Pidge, predictably.

“What are you doing?” She asked softly, slumping into the room with her laptop clutched to her chest. She hadn’t let go of the thing all day, having dedicated herself to scouring through their recently gathered data for mention of her missing family. By the look on her face she hadn’t been successful.

“What does it look like?” Hunk responded, busily rolling out pastry with what he hoped wasn’t an important piece of Altean machinery. “I’m baking.”

Depositing her laptop on the counter, she hauled herself up to perch next to it and frowned over at the oven. 

“Smells kind of like peanuts.”

“I hope they taste like peanuts too.”

Pidge paused, running the sentence through her brain to try and decipher it. 

“Did you… make me cookies?”

“Yup.” He answered, nonchalantly. “I want to make something for everybody. Since we’re all homesick and everything.”

For a long moment Pidge just stared at him. Then she whispered, “Hunk, you are too good for us.”

“I know.” He said cheerfully and went back to baking. 

By the time he put Lance’s pastelitos in the oven, Pidge’s cookies were cool and his were in the process of becoming so. Hunk paused in his whirlwind of baking just for a second to watch Pidge’s face as she took a bite out of her first cookie. 

Her eyes grew wide behind her glasses as she chewed slowly, and if he squinted a little he could see tears beginning to well in the corners. 

“Hunk.” She choked out around the mouthful of dough. “You are an angel amongst men.”

Hunk smiled gently. “I’m glad you like them.” He was already reaching for another bowl when he froze, a cold feeling settling in his stomach.

“Pidge?”

“Yeah?” She’s barely listening, cramming her second cookie into her maw. 

“I just realized that I don’t know what Keith and Shiro like.”

“Mmm.” She swallowed. “That is a conundrum. I would volunteer to go and ask, but that would require leaving these cookies, and that is so not happening.”

Hunk pursed his lips. He couldn’t leave the kitchen-- Lance’s dessert was still in the oven and he didn’t trust Pidge to tell when they needed to come out. But the last thing he wanted to do was leave out Keith and Shiro; Shiro had been gone for longer than any of them, and Keith already felt left out enough as it was. 

There’s a slight knock against the doorframe, and when Hunk looked up he found Lance in the doorway wearing a brittle smile.

“Hey, Hunk.” He greeted with a little wave. “What’s going on?”

Hunk’s heart broke. Lance looked  _ so  _ sad. His shoulders slumped until they were practically parallel with the floor, his eyes were red rimmed and watery like he’d been crying, his hair was mussed and stuck out in every direction. 

“Just doing some baking.” Hunk said back, gesturing for Lance to join him and Pidge. “With no scaultrite this time, so it should be safe.”

Usually the joke would’ve made Lance laugh, but today he merely got a wane smile as he shuffled in and leaned against the counter. He reached for a cookie, but Pidge smacked his hand away.

“Mine.” 

Hunk chimed in before Lance could get wounded. “Don’t worry, Lance, I’ve got something in the oven that you can have all to yourself.”

He got an attempt at a grateful smile in return. 

“Hey, Lance, you wouldn’t happen to know what desserts Keith and Shiro like, would you?”

Lance shook his head, just as Hunk’s timer went off. He bent down to pull out the pan as Lance spoke.

“I don’t know if you noticed, but neither of them are leaping at the chance to tell us everything about them, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Hunk straightened, put the tray of pastries down, and watched as Lance’s eyes immediately began to well up.

“Hunk… did you…”

“Yeah. You might want to wait a few minutes before you dig in though, they’re hot.”

Lance was able to control himself for approximately two minutes before he couldn’t take it anymore and practically seared off his tongue. He smiled through the pain, a few rogue tears escaping down his cheeks.

“Hunk, this is… these are great, thank you.”

“No problem.” With nothing left to do, Hunk finally allowed himself to try one of his own cookies. They were surprisingly good. The texture was a bit grainy and there was a chili-like kick to the chocolate chips, but they were better than he’d expected them to be. Lance was already on his third pastry despite the fact that they were still hot, and Pidge had demolished half of her tray of cookies by this point. Still, guilt bounced in the back of his mind. 

Luckily, it was soon to be assuaged, as when Hunk was starting his second cookie Shiro wandered into the kitchen. He looked pretty much normal, slightly tired around the edges but putting on a good show. But his eyes didn’t crinkle quite as much when he smiled at the three of them. 

“Hunk made us desserts!” Pidge proclaimed proudly through a mouthful of cookie before Shiro could even ask. He gave a tired chuckle.

“That’s very nice of you, Hunk.” 

“I want to make some for you, too.” Said Hunk, stopping Shiro in his tracks towards the goo machine. The black paladin looks back at him, blinking once or twice in surprise.

“Oh, you don’t have to--”

“Yes, I do. I’m making something for all of us, I’ve already decided.” 

Shiro, confronted with Hunks patented Stubborn Face, had no choice but to acquiesce. He begrudgingly made his way back to the counter, murmuring quiet thanks as he did so, but he made no move to request anything.

“Come on, Shiro, you have to tell me what you like.”

Again, he seemed hesitant. “Anything is fine, Hunk, really. I don’t know if you would know how to make some of the stuff I’m thinking of.”

And that, frankly, was offensive. “Try me.”

Shiro sighed. This man really needed a nap, and that immediately became the next object on Hunk’s to-do list. Stuff everyone full of sweets and then force them to nap in the lounge. 

“Do you know how to make mochi?”

“Heck yeah I do!” Hunk said triumphantly. “You just sit your butt down and watch the magic happen. It might taste a little not quite right, but it’ll be close. Hopefully.” 

Shiro chuckled again, a bit louder as he dragged over a bar stool. “I trust you.”

This situation truly was perfect, because where Shiro was, Keith was soon to follow. Not more than ten minutes after Shiro joined them Keith came in, just pulling on his gloves. His hair was wet and dripping dark spots onto the shoulders of his jacket-- probably coming from the showers after a training session. He froze in the doorway when he noticed everyone. 

“Uh… did I miss a team meeting?”

“Nope!” Lance chirped. His mood had significantly improved after six pastries, though Pidge was now sulking as she neared the end of her cookie binge. “Hunk is just being an absolute godsend and making sweets for everyone.”

Keith made an interested sound in the back of his throat and moved forward to stand beside Shiro, peering at the disaster Hunk had made of the kitchen and the fruits that had come of his labor. 

“What do you like, Keith?” He called over as he made Shiro’s mochi. Keith merely shrugged and settled down into another barstool.

“Anything. I’m not picky.”

_ These two are absolutely insufferable.  _

“Nuh-uh, boyo, not gonna fly. You gotta tell me what you want, I already went through this with Shiro.”

Keith chewed his lip. “I really can’t think of anything. Well, except--” Suddenly he cut himself off and flushed, ducking his head, and that was a really weird reaction coming from Keith, the stone wall of Voltron. 

“Except what?” Shiro prodded, nudging Keith’s shoulder. He shook his head, but he started to answer anyway, probably because it was Shiro who asked.

“It’s kind of stupid, but sometimes when my dad went grocery shopping he’d buy one of those boxed chocolate cake mixes.” Hunk tried really hard to hold back his grimace, if only for Keith’s sake. “And when he got home we’d make cupcakes. It wasn’t anything special, you can do whatever you want, Hunk.”

Hunk shook his head, trying his best not to look scolding but probably failing. 

“Keith, that is special. That’s what cooking is about-- doing it with the people you love. I can’t promise they’ll taste exactly right, but I’ll try my best.”

He just barely heard the mumbled thank you.

When the mochi was done, Hunk was treated to seeing tears well up for the third time. Well, technically not, because Shiro was shielding his eyes with one hand while he nibbled on it and Hunk wasn’t about to bring it up because that would just be rude. But still. 

Both Lance and Pidge had finished their desserts by the time Hunk was done with Keith’s, and even though they still had little hungry gleams in their eyes, they didn’t ask for anyone to share. Once he set the tray down for Keith he was finally able to really settle down with his own cookies, and finally  _ sit down _ after hours of baking, which felt heavenly. But he nearly bolted right back up again when he saw Keith start to tear up too.  _ Keith _ . Crying. Over  _ cupcakes _ .

“Woah, dude.” Lance said, apparently also surprised. Sure they had all cried over their own snacks, but this was Keith. Keith, who was shaking his head vigorously and hanging it low over the weird experimental cake. He didn’t put it down. 

“Sorry.” He huffed, trying to hide his eyes behind his hair. “Sorry sorry sorry. I just…” He shakes his head again, and Shiro wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He doesn’t seem like he wants to finish his sentence, and Hunk and Lance exchange looks, at a loss for what to do. Clearly Keith was just as homesick as the rest of them, even if he didn’t act like it, but they had no clue what to say to make it better.

But Pidge slid off the counter and padded over to stand beside his chair. “Just what?”

Keith sucked in a shaky breath. “I miss my dad.” He said it like it was an admission, or a terrible secret, like it was wrong of him to miss his family. And Hunk just could not let that stand.

“I miss my dad too.” He said as he munched on another cookie. 

“Me too.” Said Pidge, leaning her head on Keith’s shoulder.

“Me too.” Lance looked glumly down at his empty tray.

“Me too.” Shiro’s voice is the quietest addition, and he tugged Keith closer. 

Keith sniffled a bit and shoved another chunk of cupcake into his mouth. 

“It’s really good, Hunk.” He mumbled. “Thanks.”

“No problem, buddy. Now finish your cupcakes so we can all go take a nap.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Of course only one of them knows that Keith misses his dad for an entirely different reason than the rest of them)   
> The question about the playlist still stands.


	16. I'll Remember to Bring You Flowers-- Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The paladins have a day off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title brought to you by London in Terror by Motionless in White.

This planet was probably one of the prettiest they’d visited so far. Sure Olkarion was gorgeous, and once healed nothing sparkled like a Balmera, but there was something almost… Earth-like about Herma. They were only meant to be there for a few vargas so that they could stock up on supplies, but one look at the blue sky and Lance was begging to stay longer. 

None could stand against his puppy eyes, and that’s how they got the rest of the day off. They were currently gathered around where the Castle had landed-- a large field of green grass littered with flowers of every color of the rainbow. Sure the field was surrounded by a tangle of absolutely huge thorns like an illustration of Sleeping Beauty’s castle, but if you ignored that it was almost like being at home.

Lance had spent the last half an hour joyously rolling down a hill, getting strands of grass caught in his hair and his clothes and not caring. Hunk managed two trips down the hill before getting nauseous and retreating to sit with Pidge, who was tapping at her laptop and trying to pretend to be grumpy when really she was enjoying the break as much as the rest of them. 

Allura and Coran were walking the perimeter of the clearing together, strolling along like they were in a park, probably reminiscing about Altea. And Shiro had stretched out on the grass and lasted about fifteen minutes before the warm sunlight and gentle breezes put him right to sleep. 

Which left Keith, sitting a small distance away and observing. He cloud gazed mostly, though his eyes flicked down and around the clearing every few minutes, doing a head count and making sure everyone was fine before relaxing again. It was nice, being able to just sit and not have to worry about the war or socializing with the other paladins or be concerned about Shiro or beating himself up for not using the time to train. 

Lazily, he leaned his head on his knees and considered the possibility of following Shiro’s lead. He hadn’t slept exceedingly well the night before and a nap might be just what he needed. Before he could fully commit, though, the breeze carried over the sound of his teammates voices. 

Lance was the loudest as per usual, and when Keith turned his head towards the group he wasn’t surprised to find him on his feet, gesticulating wildly as he talked to Hunk and Pidge. What kept his gaze there was the crown of blue flowers perched atop his head, using the flowers stems to weave them together into the ring. 

“Come on, Pidge.” Lance was whining, barely audible. With the knowledge that the wind would shift soon, and the curiosity of what Lance was planning next, Keith stood and ambled a bit closer to the group. “Hunk will let me make him one.”

“What are you gonna make it out of?” Pidge questioned with a roll of her eyes. “I’m the green paladin-- you’d have to make me a grass crown, and no offense, but no thank you.”

“Nuh-uh!” Argued Lance, stooping down to pluck another flower from the grass at his feet. “Look! They come in green too!”   
True enough, he was holding what looked like the same species of flower that made his crown, the kind that speckled over the entirety of the field. The one he held, rather than being powder blue, was instead a deep emerald green. Pidge looked away from her screen long enough to give the flower a glare of betrayal before throwing her hands in the air.

“Fine, make me the damn crown.”

Lance whooped, and as he did so he seemed to notice Keith hovering awkwardly nearby. 

“Hey, Mullet, wanna help me gather flowers?”

Honestly, not really, but did he have anything better to do? So he shrugged and nodded, which seemed to take Lance aback for a moment before he recovered himself.

“Great. You find gold ones for Hunk, and I’ll find green for Pidge.”

With the instructions set the two of them scattered to the far sides of the field. Keith worked carefully, trying not to step on any flowers as he went and selecting only the nicest ones for Hunk’s crown, not any that were only half flowered or missing petals. Lance hadn’t told him how many to pick, so he collected an even thirty. He was on flower twenty-six when a flash of color caught his eye, and when he turned he found a red flower sitting among a patch of lavender, blazing bright scarlet against the crowd of purple. 

He felt a little silly, but he plucked it anyway and tucked it into the chest pocket of his jacket. Then on his way back to the others he found another, this one deep black and glinting slightly iridescent in the light, and he took that one too with the intention of leaving it for Shiro to find when he woke up. 

When he returned to the group he was a bit embarrassed to find that he’d picked too many flowers, as Lance had probably only picked fifteen for Pidge’s crown. But no one mentioned it, Lance just smiled and thanked him and settled down to start weaving the stems. 

Figuring he had a bit more time before Shiro’s nap ended, Keith let himself sit with them, twirling the stem of Shiro’s black flower between his finger tips. 

For the next ten minutes Lance was quiet, concentrating on making the green crown, and Keith closed his eyes to listen to the wind moving through the grass. It wasn’t much sound, just a slight rustle, and it kind of reminded him of how the dust would shift with the air back in the desert. 

“There we go!” Keith jumped a bit as Lance’s voice broke him out of his reverie, the Blue paladin dropping the completed flower crown on Pidge’s head with a dramatic flourish. “I christen thee the Lady Pigeon of the Green Lion.”

Pidge scoffed a bit, shaking her head as a falling petal tickled her nose, but there was an unmistakable fondness in her smile.

“Thanks, Lance.”

Lance plopped himself back down in front of the veritable mountain of golden blooms Keith had found. “Now for Hunks!” Pushing his own crown further back on his head, he set to work. 

After a few minutes of watching more crown construction, that old familiar itchy feeling of awkwardness began to settle over him. Hunk and Pidge were quietly discussing something on her screen that he probably wouldn’t have understood, Lance was deep into his work, and he hadn’t actually said a word to them this entire time. He was just… sitting there, and watching, and it was probably weird. 

So he stood and wandered his way back to Shiro, depositing the black flower close to him but not so close he would crush it if he shifted, and walked off to do a loop of the field. Just to make sure everything was safe. 

* * *

By dinner time they were out in space again, and Keith had just about forgotten about the flower field. He had his flower in his room, carefully pressed between the pages of an Altea book he’d borrowed from Allura, and Shiro had tucked his behind his ear like a dork, and that was more than enough for him. 

Until Lance came into the dining room with a smirk, and deposited another crown out of those black flowers onto Shiro’s head. 

Keith laughed out loud at Shiro’s stunned expression as Hunk and Pidge filed in after Lance. All three of them were also still wearing their leafy headgear, and the lot of them looked perfectly ridiculous in color coded flower crowns. 

Of course he had to eat his words when Lance dropped one on him, too, this one in red. This time everyone laughed at  _ his  _ expression, and at the image of their rough and tough Red paladin wearing a circlet of flowers around his head, but Keith couldn’t find it in himself to be cranky about it. 

He laughed along with them. 


	17. A Trollhunter and a Paladin Walk Into a Bar...-- Crossover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Pidge are sucked into a mysterious portal that strands them in Arcadia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this one is kinda wacky, based on an rp i did with some of my friends. Have fun I guess.

**The Castle of Lions**

 

“Keith, can you please go find something else to do besides pacing, you’re driving me crazy.”

Keith shot her a grumpy look from across the hangar and didn’t stop his pacing. 

“How much longer is this gonna take, Pidge?”

“As long as it needs to-- but it would take less time if you would quit distracting me.”

“Well there’s nothing else to do in here.”

“You could go somewhere else?”

“You know I can’t, the last time I wasn’t here while you tried to work on Red she locked you out.”

“It’s not my fault your lion is so damn grumpy.”

With a resigned huff, Keith marched across the room and plopped himself down in front of Red’s left paw, crossing his arms and his legs and drumming his fingers against his bicep.

“There, happy?”

“Very.”

Their peace lasted exactly a minute before Pidge was looking up in irritation again, the lights from the hangar reflecting off of her glasses.

“Ok, enough with the tapping. I know you need to stim but could you please do it  _ quietly _ .”

Keith threw his arms up in frustration. “What do you want me to do, Pidge? I can’t pull a solution out of thin air!”

And  _ some  _ omnipotent being must have been watching and had a sense of humor, because at that very moment an absolutely huge ass wormhole opened in the floor of the hangar and immediately began to suck them both in. 

Instinctively summoning her bayard, Pidge fired the rope around Red’s leg and held on for dear life. Behind her she heard Keith let out a shout, and the unmistakable sound of a knife glancing off of metal rang through the hangar. A frantic look over her shoulder revealed Keith sliding towards the hole, trying to make a handhold with his knife and succeeding only at leaving scratches on the floor. 

Pidge quickly released some tension from her bayard and let herself get pulled closer, managing to grab Keith’s hand just as his feet were going over the edge of the hole. For a moment they were stable, the wind roaring in their ears as the wormhole sucked the air out of the room. Suddenly the vacuum seemed to intensify, and Pidge cried out at the yank on her shoulder. It was pulling, pulling, pulling, and with the added weight of Keith clinging to her wrist her fingers couldn’t keep hanging on to the handle of her bayard.

They slipped free, and the two of them tumbled screaming into the wormhole. Two roars echoed behind them, and Pidge caught the faintest glimpse of yellow eyes in the void before it swallowed them up. 

Then there was nothing. 

 

**Arcadia**

 

“How are you not nervous, man?” Toby questioned as he trailed behind Jim, who somehow was managing to walk and text Claire without a single stumble in his stride. On foot was not their preferred form of travel, but seeing as Argh had eaten Toby’s bike tires the night before, Jim had taken pity on him and decided to walk to school with him. 

“What do you mean?” Asked Jim without looking up from his phone. “Are you talking about the math test? ‘Cause I’m plenty nervous, I didn’t have time to any studying at all with all the stuff with Gunmar happening.”

“No, I don’t mean the test, I mean that! Gunmar! You’ve been so chill about it lately and it’s freaking me out!”

Jim stopped unexpectedly, making Toby run into his back, but Jim didn’t seem bothered by it.

“Toby, I’m always freaking out, I just learned how to hide it in the Darklands. ‘Cause those little albino motherfuckers can smell anxiety I swear to God.” Jim shuddered, caught up in the memory, before shaking himself and continuing. “But nothing’s happened yet. We can take this time to prepare, train and read up, and when Gunmar comes we’ll be ready for him.”

Toby smiled up at his friend, and was about to indulge in a hug when suddenly Jim is tensing up, letting out a loud surprised gasp.

“Toby, look!” He pointed over Toby’s head, and when he turned to follow he was greeted by the sight of a freaking black hole in the sky over the canal. As they watched, the hole spat out two shapes that plummeted to the ground before slowly beginning to close back in on itself. 

After a moment of stunned silence, Toby and Jim exchanged a look.

“Troll bullshit?”

“You know what I always say, Jimbo.”

“‘If it’s a weird thing then it’s a troll thing.’ Let’s go check it out.”

The two of them left the sidewalk in front of the bridge, expertly sliding down the concrete sides of the canal and towards the writhing lump on the ground. As they grew closer the sound of cranky voices became audible.

“Pidge would you  _ get off of me?!” _

“Well sooooorrry it’s not like I had any control of where I fell after being sucked into a magic fucking portal, Keith!”

With a groan, half of the lump shoved the other half off of it, and that’s when it finally became clear that it was not, in fact, a lump of mysterious writhing flesh, but rather two people who had fallen through the portal. Teenagers even, one their age and one a little older.

The one who’d been shoved off sat up, grumpily adjusting a pair of wire frame glasses on their nose. With their vision returned they promptly froze, staring at where Jim and Toby had been awkwardly hovering and observing.

“You seeing this, Jimbo?” Toby whispered with a pat to Jim’s arm. He swallowed.

“Uh, yeah.” Carefully, and already pulling the medallion out of his pocket, Jim approached.

“Hey, do you guys need help?”

The kid without the glasses jolted, and in seconds was on his feet in a defensive stance, hauling the other one up with him. 

“No, thank you.” The words were polite, but the tone and the clenched fists said  _ back off _ . The other kid nudged him in the side and stepped forward, awkwardly adjusting their glasses. 

“Uh, actually, this is gonna sound crazy, but can you tell us where we are? We’re a bit lost.”

Jim glanced back over his shoulder at Toby, and he knew that look. As quickly and subtly as he could he dug through his backpack for the gaggletack, just in case the portal was actually some kind of fetch and the kids were changelings. 

“You’re in Arcadia, California. United States of America.” Toby thought the tacking on of the country was probably a bit overkill, but quickly reassessed that thought when both of the kids’ eyes went wide. 

“Pidge…” The taller one whispered to the other. “Please tell me we didn’t.”

The one called Pidge gulped. “I think we did.”

“Fuck.”

“Shiro is gonna kill us.”

Suddenly, with a firm grasp on Pidge’s arm, the taller kid spun them both around and started walking briskly for the other side of the canal. Jim and Toby followed, already baffled, and tried their best to listen in on the whispered conversation. 

“Why the hell would we get sent all the way back to Earth?”

“I don’t know, but we need to figure out a way back before we lead the Galra here.”

“Ok, so what do we--”

“Hey, wait!” Jim yelled, jogging to catch up with them. The taller one, wearing a red jacket, whirled and shot them an annoyed look. “I’m not sure you guys should wander off by yourselves, especially if you’re lost.”

“Yeah, maybe we could help.” Toby chimed in as he came up alongside Jim. The one in red scoffed at them.

“Unless you have a spaceship in your back pocket, I doubt it.”

“Keith!” Pidge hissed, punching him on the arm, but he barely reacted. 

“Well, I don’t know about spaceships,” Jim began cautiously, “But Galra sounds kind of like a type of troll, so if you guys are having troll trouble…”

The two kids just stared at him blankly, and Toby got the sudden feeling that they’d made a terrible mistake.

“We saw you fall through the portal!” He blurted out. “So are you guys aliens or from the future or what, cause you’re kinda freaking me out here.”

The two of them froze and slowly exchanged a look, before the one in glasses sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Uh…” Keith said, shuffling his feet. “Well, we aren’t aliens.”

“Well…”

_ “Pidge!” _

“Look, it’s a long story. A really, really long story.”


	18. Bitter Taste Part 2-- Free Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith's illness doesn't improve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a continuation from the last Free Day prompt.

Keith hadn’t improved by the next morning. Coran and Shiro had tried multiple times to get him to eat and drink over the course of the night, only for him to throw it all back up, even water. By six am Coran had gotten concerned enough to put an IV in his arm to keep him hydrated until the vomiting stopped. 

The fever, too, refused to abate. He was sweaty and red faced, constantly alternating between burying himself in his blanket and tossing it away from him. Shiro counted his lucky stars that he was merely a bit fuzzy, not full on delirious. 

The other paladins wandered in around nine, one of the blessed hours when Keith could find sleep. He was sprawled out on his stomach, clutching a pillow while Shiro brooded in the chair beside his cot. Shiro barely mustered the energy to look up when the door opened, only to feel his stomach curdle with guilt when he saw the faces of the three younger paladins peering in. As though he would get angry at them for coming to see their friend.

“Come in, guys, I’m not gonna yell at you. Just be quiet.”

One by one they tiptoed inside, even Lance remaining silent for once. Until he noticed the IV in Keith’s arm, and he went a few shades paler.

“What’s the IV for?” He asked in a stage whisper. Shiro sighed and rubbed his forehead.

“He can’t keep anything down. It’s so he won’t get dehydrated.”

Frankly, Shiro is surprised it took Hunk this long to start crying. But at least he’s doing it quietly. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered through his tears. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to make him sick, I swear.”

“It’s not your fault, Hunk.” It’s surprisingly Pidge who comforts him, curling a small hand into the hem of his shirt, but Hunk shook his head in stubborn denial.

“No, no he knew, he knew something was wrong with the beans.” That made Shiro sit up a bit straighter.

“What do you mean?” 

Hunk drew a hand across his nose and sniffled. “Before dinner he came into the kitchen. He didn’t like the beans-- he said they smelled weird.” He blinked and more tears spilled. “I should’ve listened to him.”

With a sigh, Shiro leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He should be comforting them right now, doing all of that leader-y junk, but he was up all night and he’s still scared out of his wits for Keith because Coran refused to tell him exactly how toxic the damn beans were, and he’s just too tired to care. 

On the cot Keith let out a sleepy groan, and Shiro whipped around in alarm, but nothing was wrong. He had merely flopped over onto his back, apparently beginning to wake up, and hadn’t been happy about it. 

“Sh’ro?” He mumbled as he rubbed his eyes, followed by a yawn. “What time ‘s it?”

“About nine, bud.” Shiro was in the motions of leaning forward in his chair, but when he heard the time Keith’s eyes widened, and before Shiro could catch him he was sitting bolt upright and trying to swing his legs over the side of the cot.

“Woah woah woah!” Lance cried, rushing forward to shove his shoulders back. “What do you think you’re doing?” 

Keith gave him a watery and not at all intimidating glare. “We have training.”

Lance’s jaw dropped. “Uh, yeah, that was before you ate the Galra death beans, you maniac!”

Shiro broke in, standing to drop a calming hand on Keith’s shoulder and press him back towards the pillows much more gently than Lance. Still, Keith resisted. 

“You’re excused from training today, Keith.” He said. Keith shook his head vehemently. 

“No, it’s ok Shiro, I’m ok, I can do it--”

“I absolutely will not hear of it, Number Four!” Exclaimed Coran from out of nowhere, making practically all of them jump in surprise. “No training whatsoever until you’re completely healed! Galra and elweynt beans are a very bad mixture, you understand?”

But Keith, stubborn Keith, still won’t listen. 

“I can do it! I swear, I can still train, I can--” His voice cracked and he abruptly slammed his mouth shut, covering it with his hand and ducking his head to hide his expression from his stunned teammates. Because for a second there, Keith almost sounded like he was going to cry. 

Suddenly Shiro is slammed with a memory: Fourteen year old Garrison Keith, who had pushed himself too hard and let a cold turn into full blown pneumonia, curled up on Shiro’s couch in tears, begging to go back to the simulator lest they kick him out for not being good enough. 

“Oh, Keith.” He breathed, dropping to kneel on the floor so that he could look up at Keith’s face beyond the unruly fringe. His eyes are bright from fever and shiny with tears, and this close with his hands grasping Keith’s shoulders it was impossible not to feel the trembles. 

“Please. Please let me. I’ll be better, I swear.”

“Keith, listen to me. You’re skipping training because you’re sick and you need the rest. We won’t hold that against you.”

“Yeah, why would we?” Pidge chimed in. “Everybody gets sick sometimes.”

“Besides, it’s not like we can get a new Red Paladin.” Lance is trying to make a joke, but Shiro sees the moment it goes horribly wrong in Keith’s fevered brain. 

“I’m sorry!” He blurts out, and the other paladins freeze in shock as Shiro gets back to his feet to pull Keith into his shoulder. “I’m sorry I was bad, I’m sorry, I can be good, please, please don’t replace me--”

Somewhere behind him Pidge smacked Lance, and Hunk hissed a reprimand.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.  _ Otouto _ , listen, we’re not replacing you. I promise.”

Keith’s held back tears have morphed into sobs he’s struggling to bury into Shiro’s shoulder, and after a few minutes those changed into retching. Pidge immediately deposited the cleaned trash can into his lap, and Keith heaved over it for five solid minutes without a single thing coming up, tears still dripping off of his chin. 

Shiro sat beside him and rubbed his back, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. 

Pidge, Hunk, and Lance stood in a sad line before the cot, all crestfallen and heavy with guilt.

“I-I’m sorry.” Lance stammered eventually, twisting his hands in the hem of his t-shirt. “I didn’t mean… it was just a joke…”

“It’s ok, Lance.” Shiro answered when Keith didn’t so much as look up. The retching had stopped, so Shiro tugged the trash can out of Keith’s grip and put it back on the floor. “Keith just gets a little emotional when he’s sick.” 

It’s not the truth, not the full truth, but it would suffice for now. 

Gently, he pushed Keith’s bangs back from his forehead. He looked unbearably tired, tear tracks making his cheeks seem paler than they are, and Shiro’s heart aches in his chest.

“You wanna go back to sleep?” He asked quietly, and when Keith nodded, guided him back down to his blanket. This time Keith pulled it up over his shoulders with a shiver. 

“We should probably go.” Murmured Pidge as she tugged on Hunk. “Come on, guys, let him sleep.”

Shiro doesn’t try to get them to stay. 

* * *

Fire. There’s fire everywhere. It doesn’t hurt but he can feel the heat, smell the smoke, it’s suffocating. The flames tower over him, monsters with shifting pointed teeth, and he’s terrified.

“Dad!” He screams through the smoke. “Dad! Where are you?”

It’s no use. Even as he continues to scream and cry and call for his father, he knows he isn’t coming. The flames whisper the truth, even when he plants his fists over his ears and tries not to listen.

His father is dead. 

The fire swirls away, and now he’s no longer in a burning building but in the desert in front of a small campfire, staring at how the smoke mixes with the night sky. Tears are falling freely for the first time in months. Beside him is a pile of shattered glass and plastic-- his phone, which he’d smashed after Adam’s twenty-fifth tearful voicemail. 

He didn’t care about Adam. He didn’t care about the Garrison, or piloting, or his future. Once again, the only thing he cared about had left him, and the burning hole in his chest from Shiro’s absence fused with the one from his father’s, leaving him half empty. 

Almost as empty and cold as Allura’s eyes when she looks at him now, backlit frostily by the white metal of the Castle. She’s calculating the best way to get rid of him, frustrated that she’s been stuck with him so long, vindicated that she finally has an excuse to rid herself of him. All looks he’s seen before, but he never thought it would hurt this much to see it again. 

He knows he’s screwed up. He can’t remember what he did, but he knows he did something. Maybe he talked. Maybe he came out of hiding when he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe he’d become expendable. Whatever it was, Allura wasn’t going to listen to another excuse. All he could do was hope she let him say goodbye to Red. 

And now it’s Shiro again, standing on the other side of the airlock door, watching with resigned eyes as the voice counts down. Not sad, not regretful-- just resigned. He knew it was time for Keith to go. He’d outlived his usefulness. None of the others have come to see him off and that’s just fine. They didn’t care, he’d long since ruined that too. There’s nothing left, and he doesn’t even try to hold on when the doors open and pull him out into space.

He floats, and Red doesn’t save him this time. 

* * *

He woke gasping and sobbing, coated in sweat, tangled in blankets, and burning from the inside out. Hands grasped at him from every direction and he fought without thinking. It hurt, everything hurt, why did everything hurt so badly and why was he so  _ hot _ \--

_ “Otouto. Calm down. We’re trying to help.” _

The voice that he couldn’t quite recognize calmed him just long enough for him to be lifted. His body tilted and his head spun, and then cold was all around him and there was a  _ whoosh _ as everything went dark.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

It was noon when Keith’s temperature spiked. 

Two hours into his nap he’d gotten restless, twisting this way and that and getting tangled in his blanket. Fifteen minutes later he’d started calling for his father and Shiro finally let the tears he’d been biting back all night fall. He cried harder when Keith began to call for him instead. 

He sat beside Keith’s bed, stroking his hair and trying to calm him, but whatever fever dream he was having wouldn’t allow it. His words were slurred but understandable enough, enough for Shiro to get that he was begging Allura to let him stay. 

That’s when he suddenly started to feel hotter, and Shiro had called Coran over. 

Coran’s eyes had practically leapt from his skull when he read the thermometer, and immediately he ran over to set up a pod.

“It won’t heal him.” He’d said when Shiro had inquired in a panic. “But it will keep him stable until I find that rotten antidote recipe.”

Then they’d had to wrestle Keith into the pod, no small task when he was awake and coherent, nearly impossible when he didn’t know what was happening and had no qualms about accidentally hurting one of them. 

And of course, just as they’d gotten him secured, the other paladins had decided it was time for a second visit. 

“What the hell?” Cried Pidge as she rushed into the room, stunned silent Lance and Hunk close behind. “Why is he in a pod? I thought they didn’t heal illnesses.”

“They don’t.” Coran explained when Shiro didn’t answer. He merely sank to the floor and put his head in his hands. “His temperature spiked to dangerous levels. The pod will keep him stable until I find the cure.”

For a second Pidge was quiet, staring at Keith’s pod, and then she turned on her heel.

“I’ll meet you in the library.” She called to Coran over her shoulder, and then she was gone. 

Quiet footsteps shuffled across the floor until Hunk’s shoes appeared in Shiro’s line of vision.

“...Shiro? Are you ok?”

He couldn’t answer. If he answered he’d just start bawling and that was the last thing this team needed. So he just shook his head and said nothing more. 

After another moment’s hesitation, Hunk sat down on his left. Lance sat on his right, and for a long, long time they sat there in silence, listening only to the steady beeping of the pod as it followed Keith’s heartbeat.

“He’ll be ok.” Said Hunk after God knows how long. Shiro was starving and about ready to pass out, but he couldn’t leave Keith. Not like this. 

“Yeah.” He expected Lance to follow up with a half hearted joke about Keith being too annoying to die or something of that nature, but it never came. 

Shiro took a deep breath, and knowing if he spoke it would come out devastated or enraged, chose for the millionth time to say nothing. 

The silence returned. 


	19. Warm Me Up In A Nova's Glow-- Garrison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro tries to figure out how to keep Keith from crashing and burning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title brought to you by Castle of Glass by Linkin Park and I've decided I WILL make the playlist for this story if only to make more people listen to this song because holy hell it's a good one.

Shiro sighed, facing down the grumpy, tired kid sitting across from him. This was the third time that week that Keith had gotten his entire squad assigned extra drills for acting out in the simulator, and Iverson had just let him know in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t get Keith under control, he wouldn’t be at the school for much longer.

At least the last two times he hadn’t gotten into a fistfight on top of it, though he was sure that if this kept up Griffin would be on the warpath. 

“I just want to understand, Keith.” At the sound of his voice Keith immediately closed in, slumping his shoulders and crossing his arms, but Shiro wouldn’t be deterred this time. He had to fix this, for Keith’s sake. “I know you’re not a bad kid.”

“The first time we met I stole your car.” Keith grumbled, and Shiro shook his head. Keith hid behind that excuse too often: the records from his foster homes, the juvy records, his teachers words. He knew too well what others thought of him and thought he could stop it from hurting by becoming it, or at least pretending to. 

Shiro knew better.

“You don’t act out just for the sake of acting out.” Said Shiro, refusing to rise to Keith’s bait. “Everything you do has a reason, even if you don’t realize it. So why don’t you think about it for a minute and tell me why you keep disobeying orders in the simulator during class. You always do fine when it’s just the two of us.”

“Yeah, but we do fun stuff when it’s just us.” Keith argued back, still glaring at the floor rather than at Shiro. “All Iverson ever lets us do is fly in a straight line.”

Shiro barely bit back another sigh when it clicked in his head. Keith wasn’t disobeying orders just for the heck of it, or because he didn’t like Iverson, or because he was being rebellious-- he was just  _ bored _ . 

Shiro sat forward in his chair. “Keith, what did you do in school before when you weren’t interested in what was being taught?”

He was trying to extend an olive branch, but for some reason Keith’s mouth just screwed up tighter in irritation.

“It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested.” He snapped. “I just--” He abruptly cut himself off with a shake of his head, glaring even more venomously at the floor like he could burn right through it. 

“You just what?” Asked Shiro, lowering his voice. Keith’s shoulders hunched.

“I just… I already knew what they were talking about. So I’d read something else, or stare out the window, but then I’d get in trouble.” His cheeks had flushed as he spoke and Shiro bit the inside of his lip. He understood now why Keith hadn’t wanted to say it-- He didn’t want to sound arrogant. But Shiro had finally taken the time to go over Keith’s file and he knew it wasn’t just bragging. If you ignored the behavior issues, the grades spoke for themselves.

“So what I’m hearing is that you’re bored in Iverson’s class, right?”

Keith nodded, still a bit sullen but beginning to peek out at Shiro from under his bangs. 

“Ok, well,” Shiro sat back, running a hand through his hair. He had to find a compromise with this kid. “I can’t move you up, that’s not allowed no matter how talented you are. Trust me, I tried.”

Keith’s lip quirked the tiniest bit, which Shiro was going to count as a win. 

“But I can make you a deal. Whenever we practice together I’ll teach you the more advanced maneuvers, but you have to promise to stick to the curriculum in class, no matter how bored you get. Deal?”

Keith contemplated this for a long moment before looking up at him with a shy smile.

“Yeah. Deal.”

* * *

Shiro was true to his word, and Keith was true to his, and for a whole month they didn’t have a problem. Keith dutifully followed the instructions in class, and during their practice hours Shiro would satisfy his craving to try new things. Once you got past his rough edges, Keith was actually a really good kid.

He always buckled down to his studies with zeal, and he didn’t seem to have the same boredom problems in his other classes as he did in Iverson’s. Every kid at the Garrison worked hard, that was true, but even the most dedicated student would take a day or two off every couple of weeks to relax and hang out with friends. 

Not Keith. The closest thing he ever did to relaxing was when he went to the simulator with Shiro, and even though it was doing wonders for his scores and his standing at the school, Shiro could see how the hard graft was taking its toll on him. The bags under his eyes were growing, and every day he got a little quieter, a little more snappish. 

One day he almost got into another fight with that Griffin kid and Shiro decided enough was enough. That afternoon, instead of going to the simulator, he led Keith out to the garages on the perimeter of the Garrison. 

“Where are we going?” Keith asked, fiddling with the pair of goggles Shiro had given him before they’d left.

Shiro’s only reply was a cryptic, “You’ll see.” 

Then they got to the garages, and Shiro rolled up the door to reveal the shiny red hoverbikes, and Keith’s jaw met the earth. 

“I figured it was time to try out a different kind of piloting.” Shiro explained, walking to the back of the garage to sign out the keys to the bikes. “I know you know how to drive, but have you ever ridden a bike?”

He turned to find Keith running a reverent hand over the nose of one of the bikes, and he nodded absently when he felt Shiro’s eyes on him.

“Did you steal those ones too?”

Keith made a face at him. “As a matter of fact I did. You got a problem, old man?”

Shiro placed a hand over his chest, pretending to be offended. “Ouch. That hurt me, Keith, truly.”

Keith was already clambering up onto a bike, so Shiro tossed him the keys and sidled over to his own. It had been a good couple of months since the last time he’d ridden them, and already his heartrate was beginning to pick up, adrenaline seeping into his veins in preparation for the tricks he had planned. 

“I’ll race you.” Keith called over the growl of the engines, and Shiro smiled wolfishly.

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

And with a puff of dust he was gone, Keith hot on his heels. 

 


	20. This Poison Fills My Lungs-- Quintessence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is attacked by Haggar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title brought to you by Virus by Memphis May Fire, which is an excellent Shiro song if I do say so myself.

Haggar, as they were beginning to learn, was one mean bitch. 

That’s what Lance was thinking when Allura hailed him while he was on a solo mission and told him that Keith had been hurt. It wasn’t life threatening, the Princess had insisted, and he should continue his mission, but she thought it best he be kept informed. 

So he did as he was told-- stayed and finished his mission, but his mind was running wild the whole time about what could’ve happened. The Princess said he’d been attacked by Haggar while on his infiltration mission, but that could mean any number of things. He could be laid up with a glowing claw wound like Shiro had that one time, or he could’ve been blown up, or a million other worse options that made him queasy to contemplate. 

So if he pushed Blue just a little faster than normal on his way back to the Castle, could you really blame him?

When he got home the first place he went to was the med bay, but was baffled to find it empty. Confused (and still in his armor with his helmet under his arm) he went next to the lounge. He found his teammates there, to his relief, but something was off. The room was almost dead silent-- Pidge and Hunk were fiddling with something at a table in the back but weren’t speaking much louder than a whisper, and Shiro and Keith were on the couch. Or at least, he assumed that blanket pile was Keith. It was a little hard to tell.

Shiro looked up when he heard the door and gave Lance his usual small smile, but this time it was strained and didn’t quite reach his eyes. He had a tablet in one hand while his other ran through Keith’s hair, and it wasn’t until that moment that Lance realized he had Keith’s head on his lap while he dozed, swaddled in about five blankets. 

Lance raised his eyebrows at him and Shiro responded with a grimace. Keith’s face was startlingly pale, almost grey, and he didn’t seem to be asleep so much as straight up passed out. A tightness settled in Lance’s stomach, a strong sense of  _ wrongness _ , and it took him several more moments of peering at Keith in befuddlement before he realized what it was.

Keith was never still. Lance couldn’t speak to how he was when he was asleep, since he never indulged in naps in the lounge the way the rest of the paladins did, but when he was awake he was always moving, even if the motion was tiny. 

He’d be running a thumb over his knuckles, or tugging on his jacket sleeves, or folding and unfolding his arms, or subtly shifting his weight from foot to foot. Lance had even noticed him pacing in the back of the room a few times when he didn’t think anyone was watching. So now, to see him utterly and completely without motion, was a little creepy. If it wasn’t for the subtle rise and fall of the blankets as he breathed he might have thought the Red Paladin was dead.

The saddest part was that Lance hadn’t noticed any of these fidgets until they were gone. 

Heart in his throat and anxious, Lance approached Hunk and Pidge, being sure to keep his voice low when he spoke. 

“Hey, guys.” The two of them looked up at him, unusually solemn, and the knot in his gut coiled tighter. “What’s going on with the hot head?”

Pidge put down the bit of tech she’d been working with and adjusted her glasses. She licked her lips and clasped her hands together-- all her nervous stims all at once. That couldn’t be good.

“Allura said Haggar drained his quintessence somehow.” She answered in a stage whisper. “Red is down too, she’s been charging since they got back.”

Lance felt his own face change to an expression of surprise. “Drained his quintessence? I didn’t know Haggar could do that to people. Planets, sure, with the Komar, but--”

“That’s what we thought too.” Said Hunk. The poor guy looked even more frazzled than Lance felt, unable to stop his knee from bouncing while his fingers spun a wire between them in a green blur. “But she must have found something new, or figured something out. Allura’s been looking into it.”

With a sigh, Lance dragged over another chair (thank you floating Altean furniture) and sat, propping his helmet on the table. 

“So what’d it do to him? He looks dead.”

Pidge winced and folded her legs underneath her in her chair. “He probably feels dead, too. His core temperature is down, hence all the blankets, and he’s really lethargic. Most of the time he just sleeps. He doesn’t want to get up or eat or anything. He won’t really talk to anybody either, not even Shiro.”

Lance bit his lip. The not talking wasn’t exactly unusual for Keith, but not wanting to do anything was very, very concerning. 

“Allura said it wasn’t fatal, and he’ll regain his quintessence on his own in a few days.” Hunk murmured, casting an anxious look at the back of Shiro’s head. “But it’s…”

“It’s weird.” Lance finished for him. “Yeah, I feel you.”

“It’s kind of interesting, actually.” Said Pidge, cringing at the looks she received. “It’s just that-- Allura said it would affect everyone differently depending on their quintessence type. We’d all feel the temperature drop, but the behavior would vary.”

She pushed her glasses up her nose, and Lance took the opportunity to intercede.

“Really? So what would happen if she did it to me?”

Hunk visibly flinched at the question but Lance couldn’t feel that bad about it. He had to talk about something or the silence would drive him mad. 

“Hm, what did she say about blue quintessence.... Oh, right. You’d probably be a lot quieter, like Keith, and not want to talk to anybody. You probably wouldn’t just lay there though, you’d probably end up finding somewhere to hide and bawl your eyes out.”

“Hmph. Sounds like a perfectly awful time.”

“Yeah. Keith, at least, seems pretty calm most of the time. Except--” Her eyes cut to Hunk, who immediately looked back down at their tech project.

“Except what?”

Pidge swallowed and didn’t answer, forcing Hunk to move his eyes back to Lance. 

“He gets upset if Shiro leaves.” He said in a whisper, like he didn’t want Keith to hear, as though he’d care at the moment. “Like… really upset.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “Define really upset.” The most upset he’s seen Keith is when he yelled. 

“It made me cry.” Hunk said, to which Lance scoffed a little.

“A lot of things make you cry, Hunk.”

“It made me cry, too.” Pidge admitted, even more quietly than Hunk, and that made Lance pause. “He screamed the first time. Clung to him and wouldn't let go. It was awful.”

“Sounds like it.” Lance’s voice was dull even to his own ears as he tries to envision what that must’ve been like. He failed. 

“Shiro can usually get away while he’s sleeping.” Pidge continued, staring resolutely at the table and not looking towards the pair on the couch. “But he can only be gone for about half an hour before Keith wakes up and panics.”

“That’s… really rough.”

From the couch there came a muffled groan, and all of them rotated towards it like they were all puppets on the same string. They couldn’t see Keith over the back of the sofa, but Lance did see how Shiro’s head tilted down to look at him.

“Hey, bud.” Said Shiro ever so softly. “How are you feeling?”

There was no answer, merely the minutest shifting of the blankets as Keith probably rolled over onto his other side, and then Shiro sighed as Keith went back to sleep. 

Lance took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out through his mouth, trying to soothe the knot in his stomach that was only growing tighter.

“This is gonna suck.”

  
  
  
  
  



	21. Nobody's Hero-- "He was a real hero."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith grieves for his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This song title brought to you by Nobody's Hero by Black Veil Brides

Sometimes, Keith hated his dad.

It always made him guilty. He’d been a good person, a great father, and he’d died saving others, doing a service. He died a hero.

But sometimes, usually late at night when Keith didn’t dare sleep for fear that one of the older, bigger boys in the home would try to steal from him, he’d lie awake and be filled with such anger that it almost scared him. 

Because yeah, his dad was a hero. A hero who left him. What was the point of saving someone else when you left your own son alone to do it? Was being a hero worth doing this to him? 

The other boys mocked him for it sometimes, and when they poked just a little too far that anger would explode out of him like napalm. He wound up in the headmistresses office a lot.

Sometimes, Keith was really, really proud of his dad. When he passed by memorials, or saw successful rescues on the news, or heard someone praising firefighters, his heart would swell in his chest until he felt like it might burst. It wasn’t always pleasant-- sometimes the sensation burned and turned bittersweet, but it was better than being angry at him.

Always, Keith missed his dad. 

He’d watch other kids at the park with their fathers and jealousy would curdle his blood. His school held a father-daughter dance and he went back to the home and put a hole in the wall. Every so often he’d get permission to visit the graveyard and he’d kneel on the dirt; sometimes he’d even let himself cry. 

It never accomplished anything, and over the years the teardrops ceased. 

By the time the first anniversary of his death rolled around Keith knew he would never be a hero like him. His dad had always encouraged him before, letting him run around in his gear and accepting the lopsided drawings of fire trucks with beaming grins and reams of praise. But things had changed.

It hadn’t taken long for Keith to be labeled as a problem child. He’d been to a few foster homes in the first year but kept getting sent back, until the headmistress just accepted defeat and told him he’d be staying there until he aged out. The option of someone actually wanting to adopt him was never mentioned and Keith didn’t delude himself in hoping for it.

He knew exactly who he was. It didn’t matter who’d he’d been before, because now he was angry and bitter and reserved and didn’t know how to talk to people and had given up trying. He was a ‘problem child’, he was difficult, he was rude, he was uncooperative, he didn’t know how to to be a good member of society or a good person.

And that was fine. No one ever expected him to be anything other than a disappointment (even when he brought back perfect grades it was considered a stroke of luck or he’d be accused of cheating) so why should he waste his time trying to be? 

Every day that he lived he was disrespecting his father's memory, a fact that no adult ever missed the possibility of reminding him of, and he had made his peace with that. He wasn’t going to be a hero. He was going to be a failure, a mistake, an orphan whose own mother didn’t even want him, and eventually the system would eat him alive and no one would remember. And that was fine.

At least, it was, until he met Shiro. 

Keith really had tried not to get attached. He’d heard so many kids talking about the guy before his visit, and if he’d had a dollar for everytime one of them called him their hero he could have bought himself a brand new hoverbike. It had made him angry, and he’d pointedly stared out the window during the man’s entire presentation, determined not to make a target of himself.

Then when everyone was taking their turns in the practice simulator he’d hidden at the edge of the crowd and faced away, determined not to get his hopes up. But Shiro had noticed him anyway and made him fly the stupid thing, and then the teacher had called him a discipline case and said that he wasn’t worth the time and  _ he knew that already _ . 

He stole Shiro’s car, determined to make Shiro give up on him before it could hurt.

But, miraculously, annoyingly, he hadn't. He’d gotten Keith into the Garrison, kept him there even though he kept screwing up, and he even began to become his friend, just a little. 

But Keith was still wary, and when Shiro asked him about his dad he’d said the word hero with just a hint of sarcastic bitterness. Then something miraculous happened.

Shiro didn’t take the bait. Instead he’d compared Keith to his father, in a positive way for the first time since his death. And that was that, Keith was  _ gone.  _

Of course, he still had no illusions about who he was inside. Maybe with Shiro’s help he could become a pilot, become a person worth other’s affection, but he’d long since learned his lesson about assuming he was a good person. He wasn’t, and he knew that still.

When he became a paladin, that foundation cracked. Regardless of any excuse that popped into his head, the fact remained that the Red Lion had chosen him, and she’d chosen him for a reason. And the longer he was up there in the Castle, the more people they saved, the more the idea began to creep into his mind that maybe he wasn’t awful. Maybe he wasn’t a disappointment to his father’s memory. Maybe he was even honoring it.

Then he found out he was Galra, and then Shiro disappeared, and then he left the team, and that concept was left in the dust at his heels. He kicked himself for letting himself believe.

He wasn’t a good friend. He wasn’t a good leader. He wasn’t a good paladin. He wasn’t a good human and he was an even worse Galra. He definitely wasn’t a good Blade. And he certainly wasn’t his father.

He was nobody’s hero.  


	22. Slipping Through The Cracks-- Childhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and his dad through the years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic title brought to you by Falling In the Black by Skillet.

“Where’s Keith?”

There was no answer-- the house was silent aside from the slow  _ thwip thwip thwip  _ of the living room ceiling fan. Tex, hands on his hips, slowly rotated on his toes, looking over all of his sons normal hiding places, trying to decide which one he was most likely to curl up in this time. 

“Where’s my grouchy little boy?”

There was a slight shuffle and a bump, and then silence again. But that was enough; the sound had come from the kitchen and Keith only liked one place in the kitchen. 

Tex crouched down in front of the cabinets beneath the sink, letting his fingers drum against the wood doors. A slight giggle, muffled by a hand, floated out.

“Hm, I wonder where he could’ve got to this time. I wonder if he’s… in here!” He wrenched both of the cabinets open and was greeted by a chorus of giggles. Keith was huddled there under the pipes, perfectly comfortable in the strange position, round cheeks red and eyes sparkling as he laughed. He was barely two years old, but already he had a knack for finding the houses best hiding places. 

Careful not to squish any little fingers, Tex closed the doors again, then with a rapid inhaled gasp, opened them. Keith burst into a fresh set of giggles at the reappearance of his father's face. He repeated the process a few more times until Keith cooed and reached out his little arms, allowing Tex to pull him out of the cabinet and brace him on his hip. 

There Keith grasped at his shirt, tapping one hand against his nose until Tex held up his other hand to him. He promptly stopped his tapping and bit down on one of his father’s fingers, gnawing away with his needle-sharp teeth. 

Tex knew human children had to teethe, but he was pretty sure normal kids didn’t tear their teething toys into little bits. Krolia’s teeth had been fairly sharp, her canines especially, and apparently that was a trait she’d passed on to their son. 

“Alright, what do you think, squirt? Time for a nap?”

* * *

One time he found Keith under the sink he was four years old and fuming about… something. Tex didn’t know what. All he knew was that when he opened the cabinet doors, instead of a giggle, he received a sharp exclamation.

“No!” The child proclaimed before stubbornly pulling the doors shut again. Tex stared at it for a moment, dumbfounded, before very carefully considering his next move. 

Lightly, he knocked on the little wooden slab. “Keith, may I please come in?”

There was a moment of silence as the little boy considered. Finally he huffed and said, “Fine,” allowing Tex to open the doors and get a proper look at him.

His eyes were red-rimmed, chubby arms folded over his chest and a frankly adorable pout on his lips. 

“Aw, what’s wrong, grumpy pants? Are you tired?”

Keith stubbornly shook his head, wild black hair tangling around his ears. 

“Can you tell me what’s wrong then?”

“‘S too bright.” The child mumbled, barely comprehensible with his clumsy toddler speech. “Too loud.” 

Tex sat back on his heels. “Alright, bud, I’ll let you stay in there, on one condition.”

“What?”

“You leave the doors open.”

Keith’s lower lip protruded a little bit more as he thought, but eventually he gave a sharp nod in agreement and left the cabinet doors open while his father puttered around the kitchen making dinner. By the time it was ready his mood had been improved, and he came out of his hidey hole with no complaints. 

* * *

“Ok, Keith, watch carefully.”

The five year old did as he was instructed, staring with wide eyes at Tex’s every move as he powered up the hoverbike. As usual Keith was sitting on the seat in front of him, but this time he was scooted forward with his hands resting on the handlebars. 

Once everything was in place, Tex put his hands over Keith’s much smaller ones. 

“Are you ready bud?”

Keith nodded eagerly, too excited to talk, and then they were off. This wasn’t the child’s first ride on his father's hoverbike, far from it, but it was the first time he’d been allowed to have his hands on the controls. He wasn’t actually steering, not really, but he followed Tex’s motions as he steered and that was almost as good. 

“Dad?” He said, slightly loud to be heard over the roar of the engine. 

“Yeah, son?”

“When will you teach me how to drive it for real?”

He felt the vibrations deep in his chest when his father laughed, the sound snatched away by the wind. 

“Let’s wait until you’re tall enough to reach the petals, ok?”

Keith pouted. “But that’ll take foreveeeerrrrrr.”

“Guess you’d better get to growin’, then.”

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaad.”

Tex laughed again and took one hand off the handlebars to pull Keith against him, giving him a good squeeze. Keith wheezed and dramatically kicked his legs.

“Dad, stop, you’re gonna make us crash!”

“Naw, not me. I’m the best hover driver out there.”

“No you’re not! The racers on the TV are better than you!”

“Keith, Keith, Keith. You wound me.”

“If you’re better, then prove it!”

Tex knew exactly what his son was doing. This wasn’t the first time his son had tried to goad him into showing off, giving him a more exhilarating ride. For his part, he didn’t resist too terribly hard. 

“Alright then, big mouth. Hold on tight!” 

Keith moved his hands to hold on to the seat, and then Tex gunned it, kicking up a cloud of dust as they raced over the desert sand.

Keith’s happy whoop could probably be heard for miles. 

* * *

It was raining the first time Keith went to his father's grave, appropriately enough. 

There hadn’t been a funeral, his father's friends at the station instead opting to have a wake for him. So ten-year-old Keith had sat in a room full of grown men downing glass after glass of alcohol, telling funny and heartwarming stories about his dad. Keith hadn’t joined in. He’d just sat where they’d put him until he grew too tired to keep his eyes open, then he’d been allowed to go to bed. 

Now he was eleven and he’d just returned from his first failed foster family. For a long time he’d refused to go to the cemetery, knowing that seeing the stone engraved with his fathers name would only make the whole thing real, and that he was still hanging onto the childish belief that it was all a bad dream or a misunderstanding and one day he’d turn around and his dad would be there to save him.

But the last three months he’d stayed in the other family’s house had finally broken him out of it. They’d been nice, really nice, but there was always a layer of separation there. The father didn’t interact with him the way he interacted with Keith’s foster brother, and he found himself missing that sort of interaction more than he ever thought he could.

Now he was back, standing in the mud and watching the rain drops fall from the ends of his bangs. The grey headstone was almost black with moisture, concealing the words carved into its surface, which was fine. He didn’t need to read them.

Slowly he knelt down, ignoring how the cold water and mud stained the knees of his jeans.

“Hey, Dad. I miss you.”

  
  



	23. Alone in All This Fear-- "I left you once, I'll never leave you again."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Krolia come to an understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title brought to you by Dead Inside by Skillet.

“I left you once. I’ll never leave you again.”

She said it as though it would fix things. As if her promises could mean anything after all of this time. At first it almost had, seeing all those flashbacks to her and his father. He finally understood why she left, yes, but over the next few days as they settled in on the space whale, he began to realize that just because he understood didn’t mean he wasn’t still pissed about it. 

And he was. He was so angry.

The first night he dreamt about his father's grave-- at least he thought he did, until he woke up and saw the look on Krolia’s face and realized it had been a flash, not a dream, and something about it made him uneasy and uncomfortable. 

He tried to distract himself with the tasks of surviving and with the little wolf like creature he’d found, but it could only help so much. He hated the flashes-- they were telling Krolia all the secrets of the life she’d missed out on and he couldn’t control what they chose to show or when. Things he hadn’t told Shiro about for years could be laid bare in a matter of seconds. 

More than that, he hated her for taking the shortcut, even though she couldn’t control it either. She wouldn’t have to do the work to get to know him, all she had to do was wait for the crazy time effects of the abyss to tell her everything she’d missed. 

He was angry, but he knew he shouldn’t be, so he tried to lock it up and keep it down and that worked for about three days, but eventually she caught on, and on the fourth night she finally brought it up.

“Are you angry?”

She sat across the fire from him and his new wolf friend, poking at the fire with a long stick. Her face revealed nothing but the tension in her shoulders betrayed her. 

Keith considered lying. After all, they were on a mission, and he wasn’t supposed to let his emotions get in the way on a mission. But on the other hand they were on a space whale going who knows where and would be there for who knows how long. Not like they had anything better to do than talk about their feelings, right?

“Yes.”

“At me?”

“... yes.”

She sighed. “I figured as much. I suppose we should… talk about it?” Krolia didn’t sound any more sure about it than he did, and it was at that moment Keith realized that she wasn’t any more used to having a son than he was to having a mother. This was new for both of them.

“I guess so.” He drew his knees to his chest. “Not much to say, though. You left, and even though I understand why you did I’m still angry about it. My problem, not yours.”

“You’ve been angry about it a long time, I imagine.” Her voice was soft, barely audible above the crackle of the fire. “Hurts like that take a long time to heal.”

He gave a grunt of agreement, and for a long moment they’re both silent. The wolf nosed at Keith’s leg until he was forced to lower them and allow his head onto Keith’s lap, and Keith stroked his ears. It had been a long time since he’d interacted with anything resembling a dog.

“I don’t like the time flashes,” he found himself saying even though he hadn’t planned to speak any further on the subject at hand. “They keep showing you things that I don’t think I’m ready for you to know, but I can’t make them stop.”

Krolia was quiet for a second, considering, then she said, “Well… maybe you can tell me some things. Easy things, and then we can work up, and you can decide what to tell me and what to let go.”

When Keith dared to look up she was watching him with soft eyes and suddenly his throat constricted. The last time anyone had looked at him like that…

“What… what do you want to know?” He forced himself to say, hoping she wouldn’t notice the sudden roughness of his voice. If she did, she didn’t call attention to it.

“I want to know about your father. Was he a good dad?”

Keith nodded without having to think about it. “Yeah, he was.”

“Did you do things together?”

He could hear it in her voice. Krolia missed his father as much as he did. 

“He taught me how to ride the hover. And some nights we’d go up to the roof and look at the stars, and he’d teach me the constellations.” The tears were building in his throat and he stubbornly swallowed them down. “He-- he never got angry with me or raised his voice. He was always calm.”

Krolia let that sit, let herself absorb the information, and a tiny smile appeared on her face.

“Do you mind if I ask how he died?”

Keith had been expecting this question, but it didn’t stop the pang from resonating through his ribcage. He swallowed once, twice, before opening his mouth.

“Do you remember what he did? Like, his job?”

Krolia bobbed her head in a sharp nod. “Yes, he put out fires.”

“Yeah, well, he went back into a fire to save someone when he shouldn’t have and the building collapsed.”

She drew in a slow, measured breath and released. Keith couldn’t tell if it was the reflection of the fire that was flickering in her eyes, or if it was pain. He buried his fingers in the wolf’s fur and tried not to remember how much it had hurt when he’d first found out.

“He was always so reckless,” she murmured to herself with a sad shake of her head. Then her eyes darted up to Keith’s. “I guess that’s where you get it from.”

Keith was startled into laughter. “Yeah, that’s what Shiro said too.”

“Shiro?” She asked with a curious head tilt (the same one he did when he was confused). Keith cleared his throat, suddenly very aware of the sheer amount of knowledge he would have to fill her in on. A whole life’s worth. 

“Yeah, Shiro, he’s the Black Paladin.”

“You know the Voltron Paladins?”

_ Oh, hell. _

“I was one. I flew Red.”

Her jaw practically met the dirt for a solid second before she composed herself again. Even then she couldn’t hide the way she leaned forward in her eagerness.

“You have got to explain this to me.”

“Well, it all started with Shiro got accepted for the Kerberos mission…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY KEITH


	24. Nothing But a Pipe Dream-- Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Keith joined the Garrison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title brought to you by Expectations by Three Days Grace.

When the other boys at the home heard what had happened at school that day, they’d hardly believed it. 

“Takashi Shirogane?” They’d scoffed, “Talking to  _ him?  _ Yeah, right.”

Keith had bent his shoulders under the weight of their inquisitive gazes and hurtful glares and said nothing when pressed, didn’t retaliate when they muttered insults at his back or shoulder checked him on the way to dinner. The whole afternoon he had one hand curled in the pocket of his hoodie, sweaty fingers clenched around the business card the man had given him.

He clung to it, irrationally afraid that if he let go it would disappear, and this whole day would’ve turned out to be a dream.

When the headmistress (she didn’t like being called that, but it was what she was) hauled him into her office to chew him out for getting arrested,  _ again,  _ he’d said nothing. Just hung his head and clung to the card, probably making the ink smear all over his fingers. 

She’d given him a hard smack on the head, warned him in a low voice that it would be worse next time if he didn’t straighten himself out, and sent him to the room he shared with six others. He climbed under the covers fully clothed and finally pulled the card into view, staring at it hard as though he could divine the future if he just studied the fibers making up the stiff paper hard enough. 

_ It’s not genuine,  _ he tried to tell himself,  _ he just pities you, it’s just a charity case. You’ll show up and he won’t be there, or you won’t be good enough and he’ll throw you away.  _

He’d said it was his second chance, but what Takashi Shirogane didn’t understand that it wasn’t a second chance for Keith. It was a fiftieth, a hundreth, a thousandth chance. One he’d been well made to understand that he didn’t deserve. This-- being good at something, being accepted to the Galaxy Garrison despite all of his fuck ups-- was nothing short of a miracle, and he knew by now that miracles didn’t just happen. People didn’t come back, orphans weren’t claimed, and he wasn’t going to go to the Garrison. 

It was a pipe dream.

He told himself this, but still he put the card in his pocket again instead of in the trash, and the next day he was where Shirogane said to meet him, bouncing nervously from foot to foot and cursing himself for being there but unable to turn back now that he’d started. 

The building in question was a part of the Garrison, thankfully one of the publically accessible ones, and the bus took him right to it. He was early and loitered in front of the building, painfully aware of how out of place he was amongst primped and pressed military uniforms with his ratty red hoodie and torn jeans and boots two sizes too big for him. With his luck a security guard would kick him off the premises before Shirogane even got there. 

Surprisingly, that didn’t happen. Fifteen minutes before the appointed time a head with a familiar black tuft of hair stuck itself out of the doors, looking around, and that same cheerful smile appeared when he caught sight of Keith. 

“Hey!” He called with a boisterous wave, and then he jogged over to him, as though he was actually excited to see him. Yeah, as if. 

“Keith, right? I’m glad you could make it.”

Keith shrugged off the useless platitude and glanced up at the building. “What are we here for, anyway?”

“Oh! Right.” Shirogane smiled at him again, and to his horror Keith actually found himself wanting to smile back. “Well, I told some of the higher ups about how good you were in the test simulator, and I convinced them to let us have some time in a real simulator.” 

Keith shoved his hands in his pockets, his knuckles brushing the edge of the card that had led him here. 

“What… what are you gonna expect me to do?”

“Nothing too bad,” he turned, gestured for Keith to follow him back into the building, and Keith went reluctantly. “At first I’m just gonna put on the first level simulation and see how you do, and we’ll go from there.”

Keith didn’t answer. He couldn’t-- they’d just gone through the nondescript lobby and into the main room, and his breath had vanished from his chest. The ceiling was ridiculously high, towering above them, and the floor underneath was black and glossy. The wall to their left was entirely made of glass, letting the early morning light stream in, and along the other wall was a line of massive metal boxes on hydraulic stilts. The simulators, presumably. 

Now, Keith liked to think of himself as being brave and difficult to scare. But he’d never been in a room so nice before (one of those simulators probably cost more than his entire life) and it was a little… intimidating. 

“We’re going to be in simulator three,” Shirogane was saying, voice bouncing all around the massive chamber. Keith had slowed a bit and now had to hasten to catch up. “I’ll be in the co-pilots seat, but I won’t be helping. Just watching.”

_ Yeah, cause that didn’t make him nervous as hell. _

He followed Shirogane up the steps to the third simulator in the row, watching in half-awe, half-caution as the man typed in a passcode and hauled open the heavy metal door. The inside was much like the test simulator he’d brought to the school, only this one had a lever along with a joystick, more screens, and about a million more buttons and graphs. 

“Don’t worry about all of that,” Shirogane said, flapping a hand carelessly at the complex machinery. “Right now just worry about flying. You’ll learn about everything else when you start classes.”

Keith halted halfway through the pilot’s seat, a sudden force making his stomach drop.

He’d sounded so… certain. So sincere. He said  _ when  _ he started classes, not  _ if,  _ and that was a little too much for Keith. Nothing was ever certain, he knew that, he knew better than to get his hopes up, but this man didn’t seem to understand that.

_ Maybe he’s doing it on purpose. Build you up just to watch it all crash down again. _

Shirogane glanced over his shoulder at him, already at the pilot’s seat. “You coming?”

Slowly, Keith approached. His mind was whirring a million miles per hour, sick apprehension curling in his gut, and for a second he actually considered doing badly on purpose just to guarantee he wouldn’t be disappointed if he wasn’t good enough. But he dismissed the thought; he was far too proud to pretend to be anything less than what he was. Even if what he was wasn’t much. 

He took his place in the pilots seat, buckling the belts over his chest when Shirogane instructed him to.

“The G-forces aren’t too bad in this first run,” he explained while he calibrated the machine, “But it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

He hit a button on the screen before him, and one by one the screens masquerading as plane windows lit up. Before them was a basic runway, blue sky extending far overhead, and as Keith watched an orange line lit up, running down the center of the asphalt and up, up, up. 

“Just follow the line where it wants you to go,” Shirogane said, buckling his own belts. “Do you need an explanation of the controls?”

Keith considered them, carefully wrapping his hands around the cool steel. They were rather big, but they moved easily enough when he gave them an exploratory jerk. 

“No,” he murmured, “I think I’ve got it.” He didn’t dare look over to see the man’s reaction. Slowly, gingerly, he pressed forward on the throttle. And they were off. 

Taking off was easier than he expected, though he was surprised when the machine simulated the stomach-drop of real flying. True to his word Shirogane didn’t say anything or offer help, just sat and observed, but after a few seconds Keith forgot all about him. It was just him and the sky, and the weight of trying to shove down his hopes was beginning to lift with the fake jets wings. 

About halfway through, the orange line took him into a stream of unsteady air, making the cockpit tremble and shake. Keith frowned, studied the controls and a screen that looked like it showed the wings position, then tilted the plane about forty degrees to the right and directed it upwards. Technically he wasn’t following the orange line, but if the line took him down a less optimal path, wasn’t it right to go against it?

He didn’t know, and he didn’t want to look to Shirogane to find out. 

There was a distinct feeling of reluctance when he finally had to bring the jet back down to the runway. He didn’t want to stop, very much aware that this could be the last time he ever got to fly-- he wanted to stay up there forever, losing himself and his worries in the rolling rumble of the engine and the clouds passing by and the weightlessness in his chest. But he brought it down anyway, rolled the jet to a stop, and released the controls. His knuckles ached and he flexed his fingers a few times, still not looking at his passenger.

“Wow,” Shirogane murmured after a long moment of nerve wracking silence. “That was…”

Keith waited for the expected disqualifier. Terrible, average, amateurish, meh, not as good as he expected. Maybe he would lie, plaster a grin on his face and tell him he did great and then never talk to him again. What he wasn’t prepared for was when he finally looked up and found the man positively beaming at him.

“That was amazing!” He exclaimed, and Keith’s mind blanked out, because what? “That’s the first time I’ve seen a cadet run the simulator for the first time without crashing!” With a flick of his fingers a screen emerged before him and he ran through the list it held eagerly, the blue light reflecting off of his grey eyes. Keith watched without a word, still not comprehending. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. 

Then Shirogane’s jaw dropped. “You… you beat my time.”

He looked up at Keith, shocked, and he shrunk back in the chair. Should be say sorry? Most people didn’t like being beaten at things, and Shirogane was supposed to be the best, would be get angry? Would he accuse Keith of cheating? What was about to happen? He didn’t know, and that scared him, but to his surprise nothing bad happened. Instead Shirogane grinned wildly at him and pulled up another screen, accompanied by a keyboard.

“The generals have to know about this, we have  _ got  _ to have you in the Garrison, you’re going to do  _ great!” _

Keith still didn’t know what to say. It seemed as though his pipe dream wasn’t so far out of reach after all.

Huh. Who would’ve thought. 


	25. Good Morning, Day-- Touch/Affection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted someone to give Keith a hug ok.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title brought to you by Drown by Three Days Grace.

The first time Shiro touched him was a week after they met.

They were sitting at a table in a Garrison classroom, Shiro helping Keith fill out the paperwork for his enrollment. He’d just made some kind of snarky comment that had made Shiro laugh, and he’d gone to clap a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. 

He’d flinched so violently he fell out of his chair, and a shocked silence had descended over the room. After a moment's hesitation he held out a hand to help him up, which Keith had blatantly ignored as he climbed back into his chair. 

As the weeks went on, Shiro began to learn where and when he could touch Keith. He was fine with shoulder touches as long as he could see them coming, but the head and back, especially between the shoulder blades, was a no go. Over time it improved, until he could safely ruffle Keith’s hair without scaring the bejeezus out of the poor kid. 

The shoulder blades remained off limits.

The first time Shiro hugged him was when they were returning from an afternoon on the hover bikes. He’d been putting away the helmets and goggles, flicking off the lights in the garage, generally readying them to return to the Garrison, and had pulled Keith into his side without thinking. 

They had both frozen for what felt like a solid eternity, each waiting to see if the other would freak out. Slowly, gradually, the tension in Keith’s muscles bled out, until he was practically melted into Shiro’s side. After that he made a point to hug Keith as often as he could get away with it, and he soaked it up like a cat in a sunbeam. 

Then Kerberos had happened, and the Galra, and for a year Shiro didn’t know a touch that wasn’t cruel. He didn’t know this, but neither did Keith.

Finally he was back, but there was so much happening and he was so used to not having that physical comfort that he didn’t even think about it, and Keith didn’t seem to be thinking about it either. He still offered a hand to whoever needed one and never complained when Shiro patted his shoulder or thumped him on the back, but there was a distance between them that hadn’t been there before. Shiro didn’t notice at first, but Keith did.

Of course, he didn’t say anything about it. Shiro had been gone for a long time, he had trauma, he was different now, and maybe he wasn’t as comfortable with casual touches anymore. And that was fine. He was fine with it (or so he told himself), even when he felt like crying when Hunk had hugged him that one time, and even when he laid in bed at night tossing and turning in a vain attempt to make his skin stop feeling like there were bugs crawling all over him.

It was fine. 

(It wasn’t).

This probably could have gone on forever, had Shiro not walked into the lounge at the exact moment Hunk had dragged Keith into another hug and watched as he froze, unsure of what to do, and seen the expression on his face when Hunk released him.

“You’re supposed to hug back, genius,” Lance teased from across the room, and Keith had scowled playfully at him.

“Well sorry, I lived alone in the desert, I’m not exactly caught up on hug etiquette.”

It hadn’t even hit him right then. He’d left the room with a vague impression something was wrong, but he wasn’t sure what it was until that night when he lay in his bunk, doing some tossing and turning of his own. The thought hit him like a bolt of lightning--  _ Keith lived alone-- _ and he’d bolted up from his bed like someone had lit it on fire.

He’d screwed up.

He went right to Keith’s room, despite it being in the middle of the night, and didn’t even bother to knock before entering. Luckily Keith was there, not battling the Gladiator on the training deck, and jumped when Shiro barged in unannounced, apparently not having been asleep yet either.

“Shiro? What’s wrong?”

Shiro took it all in with tired eyes. He was tangled up in his blanket, head flat on the bed, his one pillow held to his chest, and it almost made Shiro start crying right then. God, how could he have been so blind?

“I…” He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to make up for accidentally hurting Keith for so long. “I just realized that I came back from Kerberos and didn’t even give you a hug.”

Keith sat up and set the pillow aside, a confused expression on his face.

“It’s--” He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because before he could Shiro had dragged him out of bed and wrapped him up in the tightest bearhug he could manage. For a moment Keith didn’t move and Shiro worried he’d gone too fast, or his Galra arm was painful, but then all at once Keith went molten and slumped into him. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, feeling tears burn his eyes as Keith wrapped his arms around Shiro in response.

Keith made a content little sound and murmured, “I missed you,” like it was a precious secret.

“I missed you too.” 

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed this. Warm pinpricks were coursing through him, filling his limbs, and he felt something settle in himself that he hadn’t known needed to be soothed. Keith seemed to be feeling the same as the longer they stood there the more pliant he became, until Shiro was practically holding both of them up by himself.

Careful not to trip, he moved them back to the bed so that they could sit, still grasping at each other like they would never let go. Shiro almost didn’t want to. It had been a long time since he felt this warm.

“I’m sorry I forgot.”

“It’s alright Shiro,” said Keith through a jaw splitting yawn. “I’m just happy you’re here.”   

 


	26. I Might Not Make It Back-- Another Planet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The paladins explore a strange planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title brought to you by Paranoia by A Day to Remember. This one kinda got away from me but I hope you guys enjoy the ride.

“Well this is… an anomaly.”

The paladins stood clustered around Allura’s podium, frowning up at her while she, in turn, frowned at the star map that hovered over their heads. 

“What’s wrong, Princess?”

Allura shook herself and looked down at Shiro. “This entire system has been conquered by the Galra,” she said, “Except this one.” With one finger she pointed out a planet, floating blue in a sea of red. It was a middling size, not too big and not too small, and was in the dead center of the mostly conquered system.

“Is it a gas giant?” Asked Pidge, tilting her head the way she always did when she was thinking. “Do we have stats on the composition?”

Still frowning, the princess tapped the little blue dot, which dismissed the rest of the star map and instead drew up images, graphs, charts, and what looked like pages of information on flora, fauna, climate, and anything else you could possibly need to know about a planet. 

Lance’s eyes were already glazing over.

“It looks like a fairly normal planet,” said Pidge as she skimmed over the various screens. “No mention of any plants or animals that could be dangerous enough to the Galra to keep them away.” 

“Maybe some evolved in the last ten thousand years,” Hunk suggested, moving forward to join Pidge and Allura at the podium. 

“Maybe.” Pidge frowned and adjusted her glasses. “The atmosphere is made up of some weird gases. We can run them to see if they’d have adverse effects on humans, but it’d take a couple of vargas.”

“I think we should check it out.” That was Shiro, ever the diligent soldier. Lance dragged his foot over the metal floor, shoved his hands in his pockets, and tried his best not to fidget too much as he waited to be dismissed. “If the planet has some sort of natural deterrent, we could be able to make use of it.”

Allura seemed to like that idea, if the way her eyes lit up were any indication. “Good idea, Shiro. Pidge, go ahead and run your tests, but I’ll wormhole us over to the planet now and you can do some investigating in your suits while they run.”

With a nod, Pidge had a copy of the atmosphere data sent to her station and scuttled over to initiate the tests, Coran and Hunk on her heels to assist. Shiro was already turning to leave, probably to get his armor on, and Keith was right behind him. Lance had honestly forgotten the Red Paladin was present and hadn’t been paying an inordinate amount of attention to the discussion, but something clicked in his head regardless.

“Uh,” he said, catching the attention of the entire bridge, “Maybe Keith shouldn’t come on this one.”

Keith’s gaze flattened into a glare and he immediately squared his shoulders. “Why the hell not?”

Shiro stepped forward, subtly edging between them, an exasperated expression already on his face. “Lance, if this is more about him being ‘hot-headed’--”

“What? No!” Were they all blind? Did they not see the obvious problem here? “I’m just saying, if this planet has been avoided by the Galra for so long, it must be for a reason, right, and maybe we shouldn’t bring our only Galra paladin with us when we go to figure out why.”

Keith froze, just for a second, and then he returned to his previous activity of glowering. “We’ll have our suits,” he snapped, “I’ll be fine.” 

Without waiting for Lance’s response, he turned on his heel and stormed off the bridge. Lance rolled his eyes. 

“I appreciate your concern, Lance,” Shiro was saying, “But as long as we have our suits on I don’t think there’ll be a problem.”

Lance just shook his head and scuffed his foot on the floor again. “Fine. But when something inevitably goes wrong, just remember that I told you so.” 

* * *

The wormhole got them to the planet in forty five minutes, and all Lance could think when he saw it was that it looked like Mars, and that made an irrational pang of homesickness rise in his throat. 

It was a bit bigger than Mars, and a bit deeper red, with streaks of white following it’s curves, capped on both poles with stunning blue. On the side facing them was a huge gash in the planet, like it had been slashed with a sword.

“It’s a canyon,” Pidge explained when he asked. “About fifty times bigger than the Grand Canyon back home. Seems to me that the majority of it is a desert, with tundra on the poles. Those streaks are where the rocky desert turns to sand dunes.”

Lance snuck a glance at where Keith was standing next to Shiro. He wasn’t expecting to find anything on his face, so he was shocked when he noticed the wounded look in his eyes. Why would Keith… oh. 

When they’d met him, he’d been living in a shack in the desert for a year. Maybe he missed it.

He wasn’t sure why, but the thought of Keith being homesick had never occurred to him. He knew Pidge missed her mom and her dog and stargazing with her father. He knew Hunk missed his family just like he did. He knew Shiro missed everything about Earth, judging by the sad look he got whenever they brought it up. But Keith… he’d never thought that maybe Keith missed it, too. 

As he watched Shiro ducked his head to murmur something to Keith, who shook his head in response. And just like that the soft expression he’d been wearing was gone, hidden away under his usual scowl. 

“Alright team,” said Shiro, jolting him from his reverie. “Let’s take the Lions and head down, see what kind of readings we can get.”

“I’ll be on hand to analyze them as they come in!” Coran chimed happily from his position up front. “Just remember, if you come across a large beast, please do not poke it with a stick.”

Lance winced as everyone else in the room laughed, remembering the terrible mistake he’d made a few months back. He was never going to live that one down. 

The light hearted banter that followed him down to his Lion’s hangar helped soothe his nerves, and by the time they’d broken the atmosphere, he’d completely forgotten why he was nervous in the first place.

* * *

The planet, which Allura had informed them was called Melatsin, was actually gorgeous up close. They’d landed in one of the rockier red stripes to make traveling easier, and the red cliffs climbed like towers into the burnt orange sky, wispy green clouds congregating around their tips. The ground under their feet was a mixture of fine red dust and some kind of white gravel, broken rarely by pits of dense black clay, and the sun was a dull white pinprick above their heads. What few plants they saw were spiky and small, usually orange to match the sky.

“They look like cacti,” Keith said, reaching out to poke one before Shiro sternly grabbed his wrist. 

“Don’t just poke at things, Keith,” he scolded, as though talking to a toddler, “We need to be carefully gathering samples.”

Keith honest to god pouted at him, and Lance had to duck his head to smother his snicker. 

After about an hour of gathering small samples of the rocks, dirt, clay, and plants, Pidge’s gauntlet let out a series of beeps. Whatever was on the screen that she pulled up made her smile.

“Air tests results are back. Atmo is safe and breathable for humans  _ and  _ Galra, we’re good to unseal.”

One by one they dismissed the lower halves of their visors, letting them finally suck in fresh air instead of recycled. Well, maybe fresh was too generous. It was dry and dusty, but it was a change, at least.

All of them winced as their radios crackled, and then Allura’s voice was sounding in their ears.

“It’s very strange. None of the tests we’ve run are showing any reason for the Galra to have avoided this planet. We’ll need more samples before we find anything conclusive.”

“Whatever you say, Princess,” answered Shiro with a sigh. “Paladins, let’s split up. Lance and Keith, climb up one of the shorter cliffs and see if you find anything different. Hunk and Pidge, take your Lions and fly over to one of the sand dunes. I’ll go check out the canyon.”

With a chorus of affirmative answers, the team split, and Lance led the way towards one of the cliffs. As usual Keith didn’t have much to say, but Lance kept up a solid stream of chatter anyway, rewarded once in a while with a snort or a quiet chuckle. It only took them about five minutes to reach the base of a shortish cliff, and that’s when Lance finally turned to face his companion.

“You ever been rock-climbing before?”

Keith openly rolled his eyes at the question. “How do you think I found the Blue Lion’s cave? It wasn’t exactly just sitting there with a neon sign out front.”

Lance huffed a laugh. “Good point.” But Keith suddenly seemed distracted, his eyes darting away from Lance’s face and over his shoulder, then to each side. His fingers twitched by where his bayard was stored in his armor, and as Lance watched in bafflement he threw a glance over his shoulder, back at where the Blue and Red Lions were still sitting.

“Hey man, you ok?”

“Hm?” He jerked his head back around, blinking rapidly. “Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Let’s go.”

Lance watched him for a moment with narrowed eyes as he moved forward and grasped the first handhold on the cliff, but ultimately decided to shake it off and follow him up the cliff face.

It wasn’t exactly easy going, but it wasn’t death defying either. Wherever the handholds were just a little too far apart they could use a spurt from their jetpack to launch them up to the next one, and they were making good time. 

But Keith kept pausing to glance around the desert, then back at the Lions. Every few minutes he’d do it, as though he expected them to have moved or something, and the glances were increasing in frequency until he was doing it every thirty seconds and it was really starting to slow them down. Lance knew the Red Paladin could be paranoid sometimes, but usually not  _ this  _ paranoid.

“Keith,” he said the next time he stopped. Keith blatantly ignored him and peered off into the distance, looking for the shape of their Lions.  _ “Keith.” _

His head snapped up, now about two feet below Lance on the cliff. “Huh? What?”

Lance frowned down at him. Maybe it was just him, but Keith’s face seemed a little too pale under his visor, and if he squinted he could see a drop of sweat making its way down his temple. Which was odd, considering Lance wasn’t sweating at all and Keith usually had far more stamina than him.

“Are you ok? Do you need to take a break?” They were about three quarters of the way up the cliff now, about a hundred feet from the ground, but there was a ledge to their right they could sit on for a minute if Keith needed it. But his brow furrowed stubbornly, and Lance knew what was going to come out of his mouth before he said a word.

“No, I’m fine, we’re almost there.”

He was tempted to let Keith be his weird self and just reach up for the next handhold, but something kept him in place for a moment longer. Then Keith glanced over his shoulder again and that was just  _ it.  _

“Why do you keep looking back at the Lions?” He asked, more of a snap than he wanted it to be. “What, do you think they’re gonna run away?”

Keith clenched his jaw angrily. “No. It’s nothing. Let’s move.” He pulled himself up until he was even with Lance, then continued past him. Lance huffed out an irritated breath but followed anyway. If Keith wanted to be weird, that was just fine with him, so long as it didn’t keep holding them back.

Keith, at least, quit looking back so much. He seemed focused on the task at hand, keeping a steady pace ahead of Lance until they reached the top of the cliff. It wasn’t much to see, just more of the same from the desert floor, the same rocks and black clay and orange spike balls. He frowned as he surveyed the area.

“Looks like just the same stuff,” he said to Keith, not looking at him as his visor filled with readings from the surrounding environment. “We should probably stick around long enough to get an air reading from the higher altitude, but then we should be good to climb back down.”

Keith, somewhere out of Lance’s sight, didn’t answer, and he felt a sudden spike of irritation. 

“Come on, Mullet, you could at least--” He’d been turning in a circle, trying to locate him, and his words died in his throat when he finally found the Red Paladin, kneeling by the edge of the cliff. He looked like he’d knelt down to inspect another one of the alien cacti, but hadn’t gotten up. What Lance could see of his face at this angle was paper white and covered in a sheen of sweat, and as he watched Keith’s other knee dropped to join the first so that he was just sitting on the ground.

“Keith?”

He leaned forward to brace his hands in the dirt, but Lance could see his elbows trembling and swept in just in time to keep him from face planting into the cactus. 

“Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?” He asked, voice high pitched and worried. Keith let his head be propped against Lance’s shoulder, helmet bumping awkwardly against his shoulder guard, and panted for breath.

“Don’t… feel so great…”

“You don’t say?” He was too freaked out to worry about being nice. He  _ knew  _ something like this would happen. He  _ knew it.  _

“Where’s… Red?”

Lance frowned in confusion. “What? Keith, she’s right over there, right where we left her.”

Keith’s answering frown was tremulous. “I can’t… can’t hear her.”

“What?”

He raised a shaking hand to grasp at his temple, fingers scrabbling over the smooth surface of his helmet. “In my head. I can’t… can’t hear Red… or Blue…”

“Wait, you can hear my Lion?”

“Lance.” His voice came out in an unexpected whine, and that jolted Lance out of his shock at learning that Keith could apparently hear Lions other than his own (why couldn’t the rest of them do that?) and he took a steadying breath of the dusty air.

“Right, right, ok. Here, I’ll just call Blue to come get us, and…” His own words trailed off as he realized exactly what Keith meant, because he couldn’t hear Blue either. The place in the back of his mind that she usually occupied was disconcertingly empty and silent for the first time since they’d been bonded and the feeling made anxiety rise in the back of his throat.

“Ok, ok. This is fine. We’re gonna be fine. I just need to call Allura.”

“It’s too quiet,” Keith whimpered and went lax in Lance’s arms, and oh boy he really needed to call Allura  _ right now. _

Thankfully, she called them first.

“Paladins, please return to the ship. Shiro has discovered why the Galra don’t come to this planet-- they are sensitive to quintessence, and something in the canyon is causing major disruptions in the planet’s quintessence field.”

“Yeah, about that,” Lance said through gritted teeth, “Keith and I are gonna need an extraction. We’re on the top of a cliff, we can’t call our Lions, and Keith isn’t doing too hot.”

“Quiznack,” Allura muttered, then her voice muffled as though she’d turned away. “Coran, have a pod ready. Shiro, get Lance and Keith and deposit them at their Lions, then return to the Castle immediately.”

“Roger that, Princess.” Shiro’s voice was steady in the main channel, but the moment he switched to a private one with just Lance it trembled, revealing his anxiety. “What’s wrong with Keith?” 

Lance looked back down at the unmoving form in his arms. He was still awake, thankfully, but his eyes were glazed and his lips were moving as he murmured quietly to himself. Lance was pretty sure he knew what he was saying.

“He’s really pale and breathing fast, and he’s pretty out of it, too. He can’t hear Red and it’s freaking him out; he keeps muttering that it’s too quiet.”

Shiro let out a harsh breath, whooshing through the speakers. “Ok. I’ll be there in two minutes.”

“Roger that.” Lance paused, then said, “Hey Shiro? Did you know Keith can hear Blue?”

There was an audible hesitation over the comms before Shiro said, “No, I didn’t.”

Well then. That was something.

“Uh, Shiro, I don’t think he’s gonna be able to fly like this.”

“Red will follow if we take him with one of us.” Shiro’s voice was harsh and clipped, and just as his sentence finished Lance’s ears picked up the roar of an approaching Lion’s thrusters.

“Hey, Mullet,” he said, jostling Keith’s shoulder, “Shiro’s here.”

Keith didn’t answer, didn’t even stir at the mention of Shiro, and that’s when Lance began to feel cold.

A minute later the huge head of the Black Lion was hovering in front of the cliff, jaw opening, and the ramp extended to form a bridge so that Lance could haul Keith into the ship. The jaw had barely closed before Shiro was angling back towards where they’d left their Lions. In the meantime Lance painstakingly dragged Keith up to the cockpit-- he may look scrawny, but he was surprisingly heavy in full armor. 

He laid him out on the floor as nicely as he could. Keith finally moved, but only to turn his head and frown at his fingers where they grasped at the smooth metal floor. His lips moved again, murmured something different, and Lance leaned in.

“Sorry buddy, I didn’t quite catch that.” His voice was tight but Keith didn’t even notice, didn’t even look at him.

“Can’t hear Black,” he whispered. Lance gulped.

“Do you usually?”

“Should… be able to.”

“What’s he saying?” Shiro called from the pilot’s seat, making Lance jump.

“Uh, he says he can’t hear Black when he should be able to.”

Shiro’s posture didn’t change at all, nothing to indicate he was surprised by Lance’s statement, but he had to be. None of them could hear any more than one Lion, so why could Keith talk to three? 

“We’re here.” The whole Lion shook at Shiro’s rough landing. “Hop in Blue and meet us at the Castle.”

Lance wasted no time, and neither did Shiro-- the second Lance was out he was taking off for the Castle, and Lance couldn’t even blame him. 

* * *

As it turned out, Black could go really fuckin’ fast when she wanted to. She disappeared from Lance’s sight in a matter of seconds, and by the time he and Blue made it back to the Castle (Red practically gnawing at their heels) Keith was already in a cryopod. 

“Is he gonna be ok?” Shiro was asking when Lance rushed into the med bay. Coran was rapidly typing away at something on the pod and didn’t answer right away, giving Lance time to join Shiro in front of Keith’s pod. He looked even paler with the harsh lights shining on him.

Coran hit a few more buttons, then relaxed at whatever reading the pod gave him. “Yes, he’ll be alright, he’ll just need a few vargas in here to stabilize his quintessence.”

Lance and Shiro simultaneously let out relieved breaths just as the rest of the team crashed into the room, Allura included, Pidge and Hunk a mess of breathless questions. Coran reassured them that Keith would be fine, then Lance had to recount what had happened after they split up, followed by Shiro. Apparently he’d barely made it a mile into the canyon before his arm started to hurt, we’re talking excruciating pain here, and Allura ran the tests to figure out what was wrong.

He was still wincing and rubbing at his shoulder, but refused to go into a pod. 

“I need to be here when Keith wakes up,” he insisted at everyone’s exasperated looks, “It’ll go away on its own.”

But Lance’s head was still spinning about something completely different.

“Allura?” He ventured to ask once everyone had finished talking. “Are we supposed to be able to hear more than one Lion?”

Her eyebrows rose. “What? No. A paladin is only supposed to hear the Lion they are bonded to. Why?”

Lance gnawed on his lip. “It’s just that Keith kept talking about how he couldn’t hear Red. Or Blue. Or Black. He said he should be able to but he couldn’t.”

Her eyelids fluttered a bit, shocked. “Well… I suppose it could be possible,” she said reluctantly. “After all, Galra are more quintessence sensitive than humans. Perhaps he can connect with the rest of the Lions through the paladin bond.”

“Wow,” breathed Pidge, “That’s fascinating.”

“And worrying.” Hunk was wringing his hands. “If Keith can do it, couldn’t Zarkon?”

“If he could he would’ve done it by now.” Allura shook her head. “His obsession with the Black Lion may keep him from attempting a connection with any of the others. And of the course the other Lions could choose not to communicate with him, since they were never bonded to him the way the Black Lion was.”

Lance snuck a look at Shiro. He should’ve been paying attention, considering they were discussing Zarkon and his Lion, but he wasn’t. He was staring at Keith in the cryopod, brow furrowed with heavy worry, for once not able to force himself to be a soldier. 

Lance let out a shaky breath and settled in to wait beside him. 


	27. Whispers in the Dark-- "Two wonderful things coming together to make you."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slice of Krolia's life in the desert.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Whispers in the Dark by Skillet. Once again, I seem to have missed the point of the prompt, but whatever it's cute.

The desert was always disconcertingly quiet. Krolia wasn’t used to such utter silence-- she’d grown up on ships, always hearing the hum of machinery under her feet and surrounded by the chatter of her family and her comrades. But now, here on Earth in this place where the only sound was the wind, she learned something new about herself. 

She liked the quiet.

Leaning back against the window frame, she took a deep breath of the dusty air. It was cooler after dark. The blanket bundle in her arms squirmed, and when she looked down a thin smile grew across her lips at the sight of familiar purple eyes peeking over the red blanket.

She couldn’t remember ever smiling this much before she came to Earth.

“Hello, Keith,” she whispered, trying to get used to the strange name on her lips. “Why are you awake so late?”

The baby squirmed again, letting out a small whine from the back of his throat, and wriggled one of his arms free to grasp at her. With a chuckle she gave him her hand, extending the smallest finger for him to wrap his tiny grip around. 

“Don’t worry. Your father will be home soon.”

He didn’t look concerned. He just gripped her finger and stared as though she were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen; she supposed it was true. He was only a few months old. Concerningly small and squishy, though Tex had reassured her that it was normal for human children. 

Krolia tilted her head as she studied him in a bit more detail, trying to recall what traits were dominant for hybrids and which were recessive. At first glance, he was all human: he had his father’s pale skin and dark hair, no claws sprouted from his fingertips, and his eyes lacked the distinctive golden shine. Nowhere was even a hint of purple fur, either. Tex said it would be some time before his teeth came in and they could see if they were sharp, but with how things were at the moment, Krolia doubted they would be.

Still, she could see some of herself in him. It was difficult to see with the baby fat, but the shape of his jaw resembled hers, and when something displeased him he’d screw his mouth up to the side into a pout that Tex had wasted no time in comparing to her own. 

It was practically seamless, the way their features blended together in their child. Perfect. Beautiful. He was beautiful.

Keith squirmed again, apparently bored with just hanging onto her finger, and with another muted chuckle she raised him to nestle against her shoulder. She’d never considered having a child before now, but she found it wasn’t difficult to know what to do for him, even though human children were vastly different from Galra kits. At their core they wanted the same thing-- to be held, and cherished, and loved.

Her son’s hand found a new hold in a lock of her hair and gave a sharp tug. She laughed again, louder.

“You’re such a little trouble maker.” 

He kicked a little in protest. Krolia merely held him closer. 

* * *

Tex got home just as the sun was rising. Exhausted from his shift and longing for his bed, he stumbled into the bedroom, tossing his jacket and his bag haphazardly into the living room as he went. He was just inside the door when he came to an abrupt standstill.

Spread out across the center of the bed was Keith’s red blanket, the owner of which laying on his back in the middle of it, fast asleep. Lying neatly on her side on the edge of the bed was Krolia. Her chest rose and fell slowly with sleep, but one arm was thrown protectively over their baby, and he had no doubt that if it had been any step but his that had entered the house she would’ve been awake and alert at once.

Carefully and quietly so that he didn’t wake them, he changed out of his gear and into his pajamas. Returning to the bed he didn’t miss the twitch of Krolia’s ear or the quirk of her lip indicating she was awake, but if she was going to pretend so was he, and he leaned down to peck a soft kiss on her cheek. 

“I love you,” he murmured, and this time a sleepy smile spread across her face. She let him pick Keith up and gather up his blankets to bring him back to his crib, and the baby didn’t stir from his slumber, merely sprawling over his father’s shoulder and sleeping on. 

“I don’t understand why you do that,” came Krolia’s quiet voice when he’d finished putting Keith to bed. He turned to find her half levered up on her elbows, watching with contented eyes. “Galra family units sleep together.”

Tex shrugged and finally got to lay down, letting out a quiet sigh as his muscles relaxed. Krolia shuffled over to rest against his chest. 

“Humans like their space,” he explained, ignoring her soft snort at the pun. “And he might get squished otherwise.”

“Right, because humans are fragile.”

“Babies are.”

The conversation trailed off after that. He’d been up all night and he suspected Krolia had too (she seemed to prefer being awake at night) and both of them just wanted to curl up together and sleep. Though even as he began to drift off, he felt Krolia shift, turn onto her side so that she could keep on eye on the crib. He didn’t say anything about it. Just followed her turn and draped an arm over her waist to hold her close.

She was so protective. The first time she’d seen Keith yawn she’d sworn then and there that she’d kill anything that even looked at him wrong. Tex didn’t doubt that it was the truth, though whether that was a Galra thing or a Krolia thing, he couldn't tell. Maybe it was both. 

He slipped into sleep, content that his small family was there and whole. 

 


	28. Bitter Taste Pt. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cure is found.

They spent all day tearing through the library, pouring over text after text after text, looking for the elusive antidote recipe. Eventually the Alteans banished them from the library, claiming they were too tired to be of any use. Honestly, they were right. The words on the page had been blurring and swimming for well on an hour and Shiro’s head was pounding from the tension. 

The other paladins turned back in the direction of the bunks. Shiro went back to the med bay.

He was tired. He couldn’t deny that. He was tired and hungry and trembling and on the verge of either a panic attack or passing out. Or both. But he couldn’t leave Keith. 

He sat himself down on the ledge surrounding the pods, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. It was late, probably past eleven on Pidge’s earth clock, and this would be the second night he went without sleep. He’d be even more useless tomorrow but he couldn’t help it-- how could he sleep when Keith was right there, kept on ice to keep his fever from burning him out? The very thought of the nightmares that would doubtlessly plague him made him shudder.

Shiro raised his head at the sound of the door, hoping to find Coran with the cure ready. But it wasn’t-- it was Pidge, laden down by a huge armful of tangled blankets. Behind her was Hunk, balancing several plates of food goo, and behind him was Lance with a tower of pillows in his arms. 

“Guys? I thought you were going to bed?”

With a huff, Pidge deposited her blanket bundle at his feet, setting her freed hands on her hips. 

“We were, but then we remembered that you’re awful at taking care of yourself. So here we are.”

Another shard of guilt stabbed through him. “I’m fine, you don’t have to--”

He was silenced by Pidge selecting a blanket from the pile and tossing it over his head. When he wrestled it off he found a plate of food goo sitting on the floor before him, the other paladins in the process of making the metal floor more comfortable with Lance’s pillows.

“Eat that,” Hunk said with a dangerous glare. “No excuses.”

Reluctant, but knowing there was no way out, Shiro plopped the plate into his lap and forced himself to eat. A few minutes later, when the others were satisfied with their blanket nest, they sat next to him and dug into their own plates with notedly more enthusiasm than Shiro had. 

“I think we’re getting closer,” said Pidge at one point with a mouth full of goo. “Coran finally found that one book he was looking for, he seems convinced the antidote will be in there.”

“And Alteans sleep less than us,” Lance jumped in, “So maybe they’ll find it by morning.”

“I hope so.” Hunk’s voice was quieter than usual and he stirred his fork through his goo, probably still feeling guilty over this whole debacle, and once again Shiro couldn’t find it in him to comfort him. 

Some leader he was.

He sighed and put his spoon down on his mostly empty plate. “I’m sorry guys. I haven’t been much of a leader these past few days, huh?”

They all stared at him, astounded. 

“What? No, it’s ok, it makes sense,” Pidge said rapidly, “You and Keith are really close, I would be more concerned if you  _ weren’t  _ freaking out.”

“Besides, we’re all allowed a couple of breakdowns every once in awhile.” Lance shrugged and gave him an easy, if tired, grin. “We’ve all been through some shit.”

Hunk sniffled. “You don’t have to be perfect all the time, Shiro.”

Surprisingly, he felt a small amount of the weight in his chest dissipate at their words. He wasn’t alone in this. He could let a little bit of the responsibility go, let his team hold him up, and they could all get through. 

Maybe.

Hopefully. 

* * *

With the others keeping him company Shiro was actually able to get a couple of hours of sleep, stretched out amongst the pillows and blankets on the floor of the med bay. It wasn’t enough, judging by the way his eyes ached and itched when someone began jostling him awake, but he didn’t care so much once he comprehended what was being said to him.

It was Lance, shaking his shoulder and babbling excitedly, “Shiro, he found it, Coran found the antidote, get up--”

And just like that he was wide awake and stumbling to his feet. Pidge and Hunk were already at the pod, readying it to open, while Coran and Allura stood on the other side of the room mixing something together in a machine, the result of which Coran drew with steady hands into a syringe.

“Shiro, can you come help?” Pidge called. He was there in under a second, ready to catch Keith the moment the pod disengaged. “His fever will probably still be high and he might be confused, so--”

“I’ll be ready,” Shiro broke in shortly. “It’s fine. Just go.”

Coran bustled over with the syringe prepped, Allura close behind, and gave Hunk a nod. He pressed the button on the pod and all of them watched with bated breath as it opened with a flood of fog. 

Keith fell heavily against Shiro’s chest. For the moment his skin was cool, but he could feel the fever underneath trying to push through, and Keith let out a low groan of discomfort.

Allura held out one of his arms for Coran to push the needle into. Keith jolted at their touch and tried to pull away, but Shiro held him tightly in place and didn’t let him go, whispering encouragements that he probably wasn’t conscious enough to hear. 

“There we go,” said Coran once the syringe was empty with a distinct relieved tinge, “Let’s get him back to the cot and get the IV back in.”

Shiro didn’t wait for Coran or Allura to help him; he just tucked an arm under Keith’s legs and picked him up for the short journey across the room. The entire team followed, though the other paladins stayed back a few paces so that they didn’t crowd Coran while he tried to work. 

“The fever will be coming down quickly,” Coran was explaining as he re-inserted the IV line, “And the nausea should be improved by the end of the quintant. He’ll be tired for a few days, but he should be completely recovered in less than a movement if all goes well.”

As they settled Keith in on the cot for the second time, the tightness in Shiro’s chest finally began to unwind. It wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot, but Keith was out of the pod and breathing easy and he would be ok eventually, which for Shiro was more than enough at this juncture. Carefully he arranged the blankets around him, and by the time he turned around he found a chair waiting for him while the other paladins fetched their own. 

He sat down with a relieved smile, and finally let himself relax. 

* * *

Things were better when he started to wake up. He was pleasantly warm, rather than burning up from the inside the way he had been before, and for the first time in awhile he didn’t feel bile pressing at the back of his throat. He allowed himself a few more moments to bask in it before blinking his eyes open. 

The lights in the med bay had been lowered so they were at a tolerable level, rather than blinding. One of the pods was up and open, a pile of pillows and blankets spread out on the floor in front of it. Curiously he turned his head, only to find the entire team slumbering in a small crowd of chairs next to his bed-- even Allura and Coran were there and appeared to be dozing. 

Warmth curled in his chest. 

He was smiling when Shiro, the one seated closest to him, began to stir. He shifted a bit, raised a hand to rub his eyes, blinked a few times, and then his gaze landed on Keith and he sat bolt upright.

“Keith! You’re awake!” He leaned forward with concerned eyes to take Keith’s hand, and Keith let him. He was still a bit tired, an ache settling in his muscles that he knew came from the pod, but he didn’t feel like he was about to drop dead at any moment so that was already an improvement. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Keith rasped out, pausing to clear his throat. “Was I in a pod?”

Shiro bit his lip. “Yeah, your fever got too high for a little bit so we had to put you in. Coran says it should be gone now, though.”

“Tha’s good.” His eyes flicked to the other paladins, still asleep in their seats. “Why’s everybody here?”

“Because they were worried about you,” Shiro said, squeezing his hand hard. “Hunk feels terrible for all of this.”

“It was an accident.”

“Not really, bud.” Shiro reached out and brushed some of his bangs out of his eyes. The motion soothed a bit of the nerves that were welling up. “If we’d listened to you, if you hadn’t felt pressured to do something you didn’t want, you wouldn’t have gotten so sick.”

Keith averted his eyes. He wasn’t sure what about this made him so uncomfortable. Maybe it was blaming others when he was the one who got sick. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to be doing this right now, when he was on the verge of falling back asleep.

“‘S not their fault, Shiro.”

“It’s not yours, either.”

He let his eyes close and felt Shiro’s pause. 

“Are you tired?”

“Mhm.”

“Alright, go back to sleep. We’ll all be here when you wake up.”

Keith let the darkness take him again.


	29. I Must Confess-- "You fight like a Galra."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith, trying to come to terms with his heritage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title brought to you by Monster by Skillet.

Keith’s behavior had been called a lot of things over the years. 

“Feisty,” was his father’s word.

“Violent,” from the social worker.

“Aggressive,” said the teacher searching for a politer word for violent.

“Scrappy,” Shiro would say with a fond smile. 

“Reckless,” barked Iverson.

“Hot-headed,” Lance insisted. 

For Keith, it was just instinctual. You protect yourself and your own, you think fast and do what you have to in the heat of the moment, what you have to do to keep your family safe. It made sense to him. 

Until now, that is. Wandering the halls of the Castle after everyone else had collapsed from exhaustion after the battle and the wormhole debacle. With Shiro in the pod he walked alone, consumed by Zarkon’s words and the apprehensive weight of his knife on his belt. Thoughts came and went in a disjointed threads he couldn’t hold onto. 

The symbol on his knife, glowing purple and too similar to Galra letters. 

You fight like a Galra soldier. 

Feisty. Violent. Aggressive. Scrappy. Reckless. Hot-headed. 

Galra?

Maybe. It made sense, and that was the scariest part. After all, he’d never known his mother. It was entirely plausible that she could’ve been Galra. But how? If the Galra went to Earth it would’ve been destroyed, right? Though maybe she was a lone scout sent to find the Blue Lion. If so, did his father know about it? Was he complicit? He couldn’t have been, he was a good man… wasn’t he?

The questions were making his head spin and he had to slump against the wall for a moment to catch his breath.

Nothing he thought he knew made sense anymore, and every black hole of missing information in his past was wreathed with doubt. If his mother was part of the empire, it would explain a lot about him-- all the things that had made him a bad human. 

The bad social skills, the violence, the temper, the inability to feel romantic love the way everyone said was so important, the cold-heartedness that Hunk had called out barely a day ago. Everything that made him broken.

Maybe he wasn’t broken. Maybe he was just Galra.

That would be even worse. 

Keith let himself slide to the floor. His breath came fast in his throat and he couldn’t make it stop.

They had never met any good Galra. No rebels or resistance fighters. Just loyal soldiers. Was it biological? Was it in him, too? Was he inherently evil like the rest of them?

A part of him clung to the chance that it wasn’t true. Maybe his mother was just a human woman and his knife was just a fancy family heirloom and he was just a broken human. 

Shaking, he swallowed back the tears, forced the fear back into his stomach, and got to his feet. There was no point in dwelling on it-- if he was Galra there was no way to find out for sure. He had to get back to Shiro. 

He tried to imagine leaving his fears behind him, left in the dark hallway. It just followed along behind, all the way back to the med bay. 

It wasn’t easier there. In fact it was harder, looking at Shiro’s face while Zarkon’s words ran through his mind. 

It would be awful for Shiro if his suspicions were correct. His best friend, born of the same race that had tortured him and taken a piece of him and left him scars that would last forever. He could imagine the pain in his eyes if he found out, the betrayal, the anger. 

He never wanted to see Shiro like that. He never wanted to cause him that pain.

_ If it’s true,  _ he thought to himself,  _ I’ll leave. I won’t let Shiro hurt because of me.  _

There, in the shadows lit eerily by the blue glow of the pod, the prospect of leaving terrified him. It paralyzed him down to his bones, into his questionable DNA. He didn’t want to be alone again. But, for Shiro, he’d do it. 

He’d do anything for Shiro.

The next few weeks were agonizing. The fear… he hadn’t felt it this intensely since he’d first started at the Garrison. Scared to stay, scared to find out the truth, but too scared to leave. Too scared of loneliness. 

They met Ulaz, and the moment he laid eyes on his knife he knew with gut-sinking clarity. He was Galra. The knowledge was instinctive-- the way it felt to fight or fly Red. Like it was a part of him that he’d forgotten he had. 

At least the Blade of Marmora were good. If his knife was one of theirs, if his mother was one of them, maybe there was hope for him. Maybe he didn’t have to be evil.

The others weren’t convinced, especially Allura. The only one who trusted the Blade was Shiro-- the last person Keith would’ve expected, but it made him feel better nonetheless. 

By the time he went through the trials he was already 98% sure of his origins, and the Blade only proved him right. But that didn’t stop the realization from hollowing him out and filling his veins with ice water. 

They didn’t say anything when they got back to the Castle. Shiro let Kolivan talk to the Princess and drew Keith quietly to his room. Keith went, numb with pain and crashing from adrenaline, unsure of what Shiro was going to do. 

The small, traumatized part of him thought he might hurt him. His inner pessimist said he was going to kick him off of the team. His brightest expectation was that Shiro would leave him to bandage himself up. 

Shiro didn’t do any of that. Instead he sat Keith gently on his bunk and peeled his suit away to dress the slash on his right shoulder that had been throbbing for hours. 

“Does it hurt?” Shiro murmured to him as he pressed the gauze pad over the gash. Keith, too strung out to lie, nodded and clenched his fist into Shiro’s suit when he began to bind the wound. 

He smoothed his thumb over the last twist of the bandage and prepared to move to the next injury. Keith’s eyes burned-- he wanted to sleep but if he did he’d dream of his father and he couldn’t take that yet.

“I’m sorry, Shiro,” he found himself whispering. Shiro paused. “I… I’ll leave in the morning.”

Shiro sucked in a fast breath. “What?”

“I know it’s hard for you.” His throat was rough-- when was the last time he’d had something to drink? 

“Hard… for me?”

“I never wanted to hurt you.”

Shiro fell to his knees before Keith’s bunk, reaching out trembling hands to cradle Keith’s jaw. He couldn’t resist raising one of his own to cover his metal hand, bracing himself for the most painful goodbye of his life.

“Keith, you didn’t hurt me. You don’t need to leave.”

Keith sniffled despondently and shook his head, but Shiro’s fingers only tightened. 

“No, listen. You’re the Red Paladin. You’re not going anywhere.”

“But… I’m Galra.”

Shiro’s response was only three words, but it was possibly the best thing he’d ever heard.

“I don’t care.”

 


	30. Years Have Come and Gone-- Two Years

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith and Krolia on the space whale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This title based on Crown of Thorns by Black Veil Brides. And technically it's still the thirtieth here so im not late!!

The first few weeks on the space whale were tense. They were busy trying to survive in an alien ecosystem, so there wasn’t much time to talk about silly things like feelings. So they learned about each other in bits and pieces, snatches of conversation here and there and through the visions of the time flashes. That first morning Keith knew that Krolia had seen his father's grave, and she knew he knew, but neither of them brought it up. 

Krolia hid her grief well, locked behind a jaw made of stone and eyes of steel. Keith never saw a single tear for his father’s death, and he assumed he’d probably never see tears from her at all. He didn’t know how old she was, but certainly someone who was harsh enough to be the right hand of that Galra commander was well practiced at hiding their emotions. 

Three weeks in and he was proven wrong.

He woke at dawn to the wolf pup he’d found licking tears off of his cheeks and ugly memories dancing behind his eyes. He assumed it was a nightmare-- he’d had it before, more than once, and at this point he was used to it. Then he rolled over and froze.

Krolia was sitting against the cave wall, already awake, with a clawed hand pressed over her mouth. The tear tracks made clear paths through the dirt that had accumulated on her face. Apparently she hadn’t noticed he was awake, because her shoulders shook with a sob she didn’t try to suppress. 

“Uh… Krolia?”

She jolted violently, both hands leaping up to wipe at her eyes when she realized she was being watched.

“Keith,” she said in her deep, raspy voice. “You’re awake.”

Keith swallowed a bit apprehensively and sat up.

“Are you ok?” 

“Yes, I’m fine, I just--” She broke off with a sniffle and ran her fingers under her eyes again, trying to chase down the errant tears. “I’m just… sorry.” 

His brow furrowed. “Sorry? For what?” Krolia dropped her gaze, and that’s when he finally realized. It hadn’t just been a dream-- it had been a flash, and Krolia had seen it. He felt the blood drain from his face.

“Keith--”

“Save it,” he snapped, turning away so that he wouldn’t have to look at her. “I don’t want pity.”

“It’s not pity, Keith.” Her voice isn’t getting any louder, so she wasn’t trying to touch him. Good. “I just… I know that many things in your life could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t left.”

Keith distracted himself with petting the wolf and didn’t answer. 

“And I want you to know that I’m sorry. At the time it felt like the right choice, but if I could go back, I wouldn’t make the same mistake.”

He wasn’t sure what to do with that. After several minutes of silence, she got up and left the cave to go hunting, leaving Keith to turn the discussion over and over in his mind, trying to find somewhere to make it fit. 

* * *

The first time they hugged was three months into their stay on the back of the space whale. The flashes had become a part of their lives, almost normal, and most of them seemed to come when Keith was asleep, which he appreciated. What he didn’t appreciate were the forward flashes.

The past he could deal with. It was done, behind them, he could get over it. But the future ones scared him. Especially since the ones he kept seeing had to do with Shiro, but he was never acting like Shiro, and it drove him mad with anxiety that he couldn’t do anything about while stuck on a space whale flying through a quantum abyss. 

That was the type that came to him that night. Even in his sleep he could recognize that this one wasn’t a dream-- it was in that same strange facility, with a sneering Shiro with magenta eyes bearing down on him with some sort of plasma weapon. He cried out to him, pleaded, kicked and struggled, but Shiro was unrelenting.

“Just let go, Keith. You don’t have to fight anymore.”

The sword was too close to him. He could feel it searing into his skin, burning, it  _ burned-- _

He catapulted into wakefulness with a scream in his throat, Shiro’s name on his lips. The wolf, now larger, flopped across his lap in an attempt to calm him but it didn’t work. His breath was racing and shuddering in his chest, and he could still feel the plasma, burning and cauterizing the skin as Shiro pressed the blade down towards his throat--

“It’s ok, Keith, it’s ok. You’re safe.” 

Warm arms surrounded him, which he hadn’t been expecting, but he leaned into them nonetheless, starving for comfort. 

“It can’t be him,” he stuttered between breaths, “It can’t be real, Shiro wouldn’t hurt me, Shiro would never hurt me.”

“Shhhhh,” Krolia soothed, running one hand through his hair while the wolf tried to squeeze into the middle of their embrace. “It’s alright.”

It wasn’t alright, but he let himself lean into the warmth and breathed in the lie anyway. 

* * *

The first time he called her ‘Mom’, it was a complete accident. They were roasting their dinner over their fire, one skewer full of meat and one full of the strange bitter vegetables they’d dug up. Keith served himself, going for just the meat and hoping Krolia wouldn’t notice. No such luck.

“Keith,” she said sharply, eyeing his skewer. “You can’t live on just meat.”

Keith let out an overdramatic groan. It had been almost eight months since they’d crashed on the space whale and Keith had begun to warm up to her-- he kinda had to, given she was the only other person he could talk to. 

“Don’t whine. Eat your vegetables.”

Without thinking, Keith said, “God, what are you, my mom?” The way he used to do to Shiro. Then he realized what he said and they both froze, staring at each other.

They burst into laughter at the same moment. 

* * *

It was a year and a half before either of them said ‘I love you’. 

Krolia whispered it one night, thinking Keith was asleep, not expecting it when he rolled over and surprised him with a hug. 

He’d whispered it back to her, barely audible, and Krolia cried. 

He could get used to having a mom. 

 


	31. Something Strange-- Halloween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Witch Keith and his Pride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEN! And thus ends the marvelous Keithmonth. I really had the best time writing these you guys have no idea. This idea came from a collab idea with @asianmc-aj on tumblr.

The forest was dark at twilight. The shadows sank into an inky purple the lower the sun dipped towards the horizon, the chill of the autumn breeze rattling through thin branches and rustling the mounds of dead leaves lining the path. The darkness and the chill didn’t bother him at all; he breathed in the crisp air and let it run tingling through him as he followed the path he knew better than anything else. 

The forest grew ever darker the further he went and the more the sun descended. The moon was beginning to appear over the tops of the trees, full and yellow. To his left an owl cooed softly, answered by the harsh cawing of a crow to his right. Other than that the trees were silent. Keith knew better than to trust the silence.

Out there, just beyond the tree line, shapes were shifting in the shadows. He couldn’t see them yet, but he knew they were out there. He could feel them.

They didn’t wait long to join him. First, as always, was Anuli; slinking from the trees with her head low between her shoulder blades which bobbed up and down as she walked. Her tail whipped at the bushes behind her long legs-- she was the fastest of the whole pride, and it showed in the thinness of her hips and the sheer length of her rear legs. 

She came right up to his side, purring as he ran his fingers through the spotted fur on the top of her head. His connection with her was even stronger than usual tonight, her voice in his head loud like she was speaking through a megaphone.

_ YOU ARE LATE. THE MOON IS RISEN.  _

He winced at the volume and scratched behind one of the cheetah’s round ears. He was going to get fur all over his fingerless gloves, but they were like that to begin with. 

_ I know. Turn it down a bit, please? _

The cat huffed, but her voice wasn’t shrieking in his head anymore, so he counted it as a win. It was barely a minute further on their walk when a second shadow joined them, pushing up against his left hand in search of the same scratches he was giving to Anuli. 

He chuckled and said aloud, “Good evening, Naiche.”

Naichie made a sort of chuffing yowl at him and arched his head into Keith’s hand. He was the youngest, still having a bit of his coarse kitten scruff running down the back of his neck. Soon after followed Yordan, the largest and slowest of the bunch but the most affectionate, butting Anuli out of the way for his share of scratches. Anuli chuffed but didn’t fight back; she just moved forward to trot ahead of the group. 

They were nearly at the end of the path by the time Wyn came tumbling out of the brush, burs and twigs caught in her fur. Naichie easily moved aside so that she could take his place and let Keith pick the detritus from her coat as they walked, shaking his head affectionately the whole way. There was a reason he cut his cloak short enough not to drag on the ground.

When the moon was high they finally reached their destination-- a clearing in the shape of a perfect circle, ringed by tall, leafless trees. In the center of the clearing was another circle, this one of smooth stone and filled to the brim with sparkling, glowing blue water. The magic seeping from it was cool and refreshing and allowed grass to grow in the clearing even on the verge of winter, tall and graceful. 

Once they’d arrived the cheetahs split from their positions, spreading out across the clearing. Naichie and Anuli immediately began to play wrestle, nipping at each other’s throats and tails, while Yordan settled down in the grass with Wyn curled up in the hollow between his limbs, the smallest cat easily fitting with the largest as he groomed her. 

Keith perched himself on the edge of the fountain, pushing back his hood and making sure the cloak didn’t dip into the water, and waited, digging the heels of his long black boots into the dirt to entertain himself. 

It didn’t take long for the last cat in their pride to make his appearance. Viktor was large and stately, striding into the clearing as though he were royalty and everyone else was a peasant. He made his way over to Keith and settled down in the grass beside him, perching his head on Keith’s knee. 

_ Something troubles you,  _ he rumbled, being teased into a purr by Keith’s fingers on the nape of his neck. Keith drew in a deep breath and let it out, letting himself relax. This forest, this glade, had been his safe place for the past year. No one knew about it, not even his coven. 

He unwittingly flinched at the thought. Right-- as of today they were his  _ former  _ coven. 

Viktor’s ears perked at the thought.  _ You broke with Zarkon?  _ The surprise was palpable and rippled through the pride, the other cats pausing in their activities to look over. Anuli was already loping her way towards them when Keith finally figured out how to answer. 

“Yes,” he answered aloud. His words rang off the trees, too loud for the peace of the forest. Anuli sat down before him and plopped a paw the size of his hand onto his knee. 

“The ritual he had planned for tonight… it wasn’t anything I wanted to be a part of.”

Anuli brushed a bit of curiosity at him.  _ You joined them because they were necromancers, did you not? Because others shunned you for it?  _

Wyn was the next to join them, perching on the edge of the fountain and co-opting the other side of Keith’s lap with her small head. Curious amber eyes stared up at him.

_ What could be bad enough to make a necromancer run away?  _ She asked, not maliciously, merely blunt in her manner. Glancing down at Viktor, Keith studied the purple charm wound around his wrist on it’s cord, the way it glowed slightly and pulsed with his heartbeat. 

“They wanted to raise humans. But not with their free will, like they did with animals. They wanted servants.” A shiver ran down his spine at the thought. “I don’t know what Zarkon wanted them for, but whatever it was wasn’t good.”

Yordan finally joined them, flopping his stomach over Keith’s boots and settling there. He didn’t say anything. He only sent feelings of support and comfort to soothe him. With no one left to play with Naichie came over as well, completing the group of familiars. 

“I didn’t want to do it, so I left. They’re… not exactly pleased with me.”

Naichie growled and bared his teeth.  _ They will have to go through me before they hurt you!  _

“It’s alright, Naichie, I can protect myself. It’s Halloween. I’m just as strong as they are.”

Keith tilted his head back and studied the moon. Having risen from the dust on the horizon it now shone pearly white, mixing with the blue light from the fountain and the silver from the stars and lighting the forest almost as brightly as the sun. He exhaled slowly, feeling the way it left his lungs, allowing himself to be pulled into the embrace of the night and the trees. He could feel every life in the forest , how they connected with each other, how the web spread across the land in intricate loops. 

His spirit settled. If anyone was coming for him, he’d feel it long before they found him. 

“Come on guys, we’ve got work to do.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This collection also has a Spotify Playlist, which you can see on my tumblr, @arwenride.


End file.
